Where the Heart Is
by Shana the Short
Summary: "Well, he did just give you his first born son, after all." There's nothing like unplanned parenthood to make you grow up fast, as Sakura's learning. Especially when you're ten.
1. Prologue: The Baby and the Beast

**Disclaimer:** Naruto and all canon characters referenced here don't belong to me, but Tsumo, Ringo, Yurin and any other OCs that show up here do, unless otherwise disclaimed.

_Last Edited: Sep 7, 2012_

* * *

**Where the Heart Is**

Prologue: The Baby and the Beast

* * *

_She never compromises_

_Loves babies and surprises…_

-"Meet Virginia" by Train

* * *

Sakura stared at the baby.

The baby stared back.

Sakura turned to the man sitting with her. "You're certain—absolutely, positively _certain_—that Momo-nii wants _me_ to take care of—" she paused, trying to remember the little boy's name.

"Ringo," Harada Tsumo supplied helpfully.

"—of Ringo-chan? Not Yurin, or you?" Sakura tentatively prodded the two-year-old's stomach. His bored expression didn't so much as flicker, but his bright green eyes slid to the offensive finger before zeroing in on her own once more. If not for those eyes, she wouldn't have believed the boy to be her older brother's child. For one, his hair was a bright, bloody red in the place of the odd pink hair the two Haruno children sported. And, more importantly, Haruno Momotaro was flamboyantly, flamingly gay. Sakura really had to wonder what on earth happened abroad that could make her older brother touch a woman.

"I'm afraid so," Tsumo was saying. "He was very clear on that in his letter."

Sakura couldn't blame Momo, really. Their aunt, Yuriko, was busy enough with keeping the central Fire Shrine in the village up and running. It wouldn't be fair to shove a child onto her…again. "I'll be graduating from the Academy in a few years," she said. "I'll have to go on missions and leave the village sometimes."

"Momo-kun wouldn't dream of tying your hands like that, Sacchan. I'll be happy to help you with him whenever you need it." Sakura loved Tsumo—he had been Momo's best friend for going on seven years, and had helped raise her. Tilting his head to the side, Tsumo slanted a curious look at the bizarrely stoic child. "According to Momo-kun, he's very well behaved."

"I can sense that," Sakura agreed, as she tried and failed to tickle Ringo under the chin. He simply blinked sedately up at her before turning his head away. His eyes still hadn't moved away from her. The ten-year-old sighed and ran a hand over his messy red hair, smiling faintly as he rubbed back against her palm. "…I think I might be able to do this." She'd give Momo hell for dropping this on her with only a letter and some money, but there was no way she would or could refuse to take in the little boy.

Tsumo smiled and tousled her hair playfully. "Personally, I can't wait to hear the massive favor Momo-kun is pre-paying you for."

Sakura looked at him, puzzled.

"Well, he did just give you his first born son, after all."

It was times like this, she thought as she began to laugh, that Sakura remembered why she loved Tsumo.

* * *

Sakura realized quickly enough that it wouldn't be right to just let Yurin and Tsumo pay for everything forever. Ringo was her responsibility, and in a few short years she'd be an adult in the eyes of the law; she should be able to offer support too. She'd need a greater pay than an administrative position, as Mizuki-sensei (or, as she liked to call him, The Bastard) had mockingly pegged her for one day, not realizing that she had been passing by the teacher's lounge at the time.

As much as it stung to admit it, he was right. In most physical tests and exercises, she was just barely average, and that just didn't cut it if you wanted to rise through the ranks and get the really lucrative missions. So, firmly setting her resolution in place, she eased herself onto the road of self-improvement, spending a little more time training every day. She focused most on her weakest points, picking up as many muscle-building and agility exercises as she could.

Sakura had asked The Bastard how to increase her chakra reserves as well, but he had merely laughed her off, saying that somebody like her shouldn't be worrying about things like that. Correctly interpreting that as "I have absolutely no idea, I'll just patronize you to make you feel inferior and stupid", she turned instead to Iruka-sensei (or, as she liked to call him The Intelligent, Remarkably Understanding, Kind Adult. The IRUKA, for short), who was much more helpful and should have been her first choice. He had explained that chakra, much like muscles, had to be gradually increased by pushing ones limit again and again. Because of her advanced chakra control and maturity, he had enough faith in her to lend her a scroll of chakra manipulation exercises. The IRUKA was amazing like that.

The first and most basic, tree-climbing, she had mastered on the first try. It didn't tire her out for very long, and it did stretch her levels very much, but it took some time. It couldn't casually fit in to her new routine, but it had been worth it to see Tsumo's face when he walked in after a long, tedious day at the office and she welcomed him back from the ceiling. Ringo had even laughed, which had swept away any hesitation she felt about her new resolve. He was really a sweet child, and thankfully not a mute as Momo had assumed. Sakura had bonded with the little guy, to the point where she had begun taking him with her on her early morning runs.

Those daily work-out sessions were made much more enjoyable when she added the second technique from the scroll to her slowly growing arsenal. Water-walking used up more of her chakra than tree climbing had, since it had to be constantly maintained, and was combined with the relentless pace she had set for herself. The combination of vigorous early morning training, classwork and sparring, and after-school-before-dinner training left her fairly drained at the end of the day. It was a good sort of exhaustion, though; the kind that came only after a day of good, honest work where one had done their best, and Sakura had acquired a taste for it.

Then one day, a few weeks into her new regime, her life was changed forever more.

On that day, she met Maito Gai, Konoha's Beautiful Green Beast.

* * *

It started out much like any other day—the sun was getting ready to rise, the birds were beginning to tweet, Ringo's little face held all the emotion of a rock—in a word, ordinary to the extreme. She double-checked that Ringo was firmly strapped into his harness, as she always did, before beginning her run. Her route around the village strayed closer to the training grounds and parks than the commercial and residential districts, so there was minimal chance of disturbing the civilians. And she studiously avoided the Fire Shrine; Yurin was an early riser, and there was no need to worry her over the harsh training her niece was putting herself through, after all.

Just as she touched down upon the large, steady stream that wound through over a third of the village, a booming voice nearly caused her to stumble.

"How _inspiring!"_

It was only her superb control over her chakra and sheer terror at the idea of Ringo drowning that kept her from tumbling into the water. Heart racing, she whirled around to confront the man behind her—

—and her mind stalled. The blistering words she had been summoning died on her tongue as she stared at, quite possibly, the oddest-looking man she had ever met.

Her eyes slowly drank in the shiny bowl cut, the think eyebrows, and when they hit the green jumpsuit and orange leg-warmers, they leapt back to his face in self defense, and even that was dangerous business. His grin was honest-to-God_sparkling_. She was so shell-shocked that she didn't even flinch when he bounded down from the red bridge he had been posing on to clap her on the shoulders firmly.

_My God,_ Sakura thought faintly. _He actually has _tears _in his eyes. _Things only got worse once he opened his mouth once more. "Such passion—such _dedication_—such an overwhelming aura of _TRUE LOVE and AFFECTION _in one so young!" _Ah,_ she realized as a tiny hand gripped her hair. _It's Ringo he's so worked up about._ The man continued on, his deep voice ringing clear in the early morning air. "Young miss, you are a veritable paragon of YOUTH!The Will of Fire burns brightly in you—to combine training with familial bonding…truly, I must commend you!"

"….thank you." Sakura said weakly. "Um….can I go? If I stay too long, I'll have to rush to get to class." The man began weeping at that—actually _sobbing_, like a man discovering religion for the first time—before looking up with a burning determination in his eyes. "Please!" he began passionately. "Allow me to join you in this Shining Tribute to the Springtime of Youth!"

There really wasn't much Sakura could say to that.

Ringo found the man funny enough, though, and with such a heavy endorsement on his side, the strange jounin became a semi-permanent fixture in their daily runs.

* * *

A week before the end of Sakura's second-to-last year at the Academy, Gai halted their routine early, a serious look on his face. "Sakura-chan," he said, holding her by the shoulders as he always did when imparting something of great importance, emotion, or pride. "I am both saddened and elated; in but seven days, I shall be joining the hallowed ranks of the jounin-sensei of Konohagakure!"

"That's great!" Sakura grinned. The strange man had grown on her in their time together, and she knew how much being assigned students of his own meant to him. "Whoever you get will be really lucky." Her smile wilted a bit at the thought of not seeing him around all the time.

Gai and his flair for the dramatic had, of course, preempted her disappointment. "Forgive me, my dear comrade, for I have an utterly selfish request to make of you today."

Even Ringo looked a little surprised at the grave tone of the normally exuberant man, though Sakura couldn't see it. "Okay…" She said slowly, dragging out the last syllable. "Shoot."

"Please Sakura-chan…allow my pupils to join us each morning! Being exposed to one so youthful as you can only do them good!" Gai clenched a fist and waves suddenly appeared in the forested area they had paused in to crash majestically behind him.

Sakura reflexively cancelled the genjutsu he had unknowingly erected by sheer force of emotion and pretended to consider it for a moment. Then she giggled, unable to contain herself at the anxious look he wore. "Of course! I'm really happy, actually; I was afraid I wouldn't get to train with you at all anymore." Ringo made a small grunt of agreement and nodded, his soft cheek rubbing against her hair.

Gai lasted an impressive four seconds before shouting out and dragging them into a tight hug, sincerely touched to the point of tears once again. Sakura just laughed again, and decided to let the sunset that had popped up stay, for the moment.

* * *

"Good morning, Team Nine!" boomed Gai in the pale, predawn light. Tenten winced at the volume and vaguely wondered if she would make it to jounin—or chuunin, really—without going half-deaf. As one of her new teammates returned the greeting with just as much enthusiasm, she resigned herself to the fact that there probably wouldn't be anything "half" about it at all. The final member of their squad simply sighed in annoyance and Tenten had to force herself not to stare at him.

Hyuuga Neji was gorgeous, yes, but he was also icy, unsociable and looked down on any and all that he perceived as 'weaker'. Tenten had the slightest crush on him—really, what red-blooded girl with eyes _wouldn't_—but she made sure never to let it show around him and his all-seeing eyes. The top rookie of their year wouldn't hesitate to scorn her for it, and she didn't want their team dynamics any more screwed over than they were already.

"Now, my young pupils," said Gai at a more socially acceptable level, indicating that he meant business. Three spines snapped to attention reflexively as he continued. "Today, you shall meet an incredible person. Do not fixate on rank. Do not fixate on appearance. She is a truly strong person, and the Springtime of Youth blooms vibrantly in her. Treat her with respect, and remember to always look underneath the underneath, like true shinobi."

Tenten felt her heart speed up. A person that their sensei, a jounin, respected…they had to be special. And he had said "she"—a kunoichi, for sure!

As soft footfalls slowly became audible, Tenten watched the road expectantly. She couldn't find any sign of movement whatsoever, and her admiration kicked up another notch. Suddenly, Neji, who had subtly activated his Byakugan, inhaled sharply and turned to the side of the bridge, staring out across the water.

She and Lee quickly followed suit. Her mind reeled in disbelief as she caught sight of the figure sprinting across the surface of the river. Though she was fast, one thing stood out immediately: her hair was _pink. _Tenten's astonishment only grew from there. When the other girl landed on the railing in front of them, she realized that not only was the newcomer younger than them—Tenten remembered seeing her around the Academy—but there was, inexplicably, a small child perched in her arms.

The little boy's face was a study in blankness. Where other children, presented with such a ride, would show excitement, glee, or fear, there was nothing. Only the barest flicker of interest stirred in his light green eyes when Gai bounded over to them.

"Good morning, Sakura-chan!" He boomed. "And you as well, young Ringo-kun!" The russet-haired toddler just yawned in the face of such a Youthful! Greeting and nestled his face into the crook of his sister's (or so Tenten assumed) neck. The girl smiled lightly, amazingly unfazed by their odd teacher.

"Good morning, Gai-sempai. Sorry we're a bit late; Ringo isn't used to getting up so early." Her voice was soft with amusement and affection. It was only years of training that allowed Tenten to catch Ringo's sulky little huff.

Now that she was stationary, Tenten took a moment to assess the girl their sensei was so interested in. She was pretty, with glaringly exotic coloring and a forehead that looked a little on the wide side, but it suited her. She noted with interest the bandaged fingers and whipcord-thin frame beneath the long-sleeved shirt the Academy student was wearing.

The child in her arms had a mess of red hair and green eyes nearly identical to hers. He was in civilian clothes, indicating that he wouldn't be going to the Academy in the future, or that Sakura was a first generation ninja. His soft, rounded face seemed to be stuck on its default expression of boredom.

Sakura hopped off the railing and shifted Ringo so he rested more comfortably in her arms as she bowed. "It's nice to meet you all. I'm Haruno Sakura, and this is my nephew, Haruno Ringo."

Tenten, middle child of five siblings, winced in sympathy.

"Your brother shafted you with babysitting duty today?" she asked. It had happened to her more times than she could count.

"Babysitting duty…?" Sakura mused. Then she laughed. "Kind of. Momo-nii went off travelling a few years back and somewhere along the way, Ringo was born. He sent him back here to me about a year or so ago. He didn't mention anything about the mother."

Tenten stared. "…oh." And she had thought _her_ siblings could be inconsiderate.

"Fate is rarely kind to second children." Neji remarked. "Why did he choose you, when you're but a child yourself?"

Sakura coughed. "Well, I can't really fault him on that. Our aunt basically runs the Fire Shrine here. She checks in on me, from time to time, now that I'm old enough to take care of myself, and she spots me if I need money or something, but she doesn't really have the proper amount of time or space for a child. After our parents took off travelling, I was mostly raised by Momo-nii and his friend Tsumo, who lives with me now."

"HOW INSPIRING!" exclaimed Lee, unable to contain himself any longer. Tenten saw Sakura stifle another laugh for some reason, though her mirth didn't last. The bushy-browed boy was suddenly in front of Sakura, one of her hands clasped firmly in his own. Her other supported Ringo, who looked even surlier than he had before. Lee's round eyes were sparkling. Tenten had a bad feeling.

"Sakura-san! You are as selfless as you are beautiful! Please, be my girlfriend!" The kunoichi-in-training blinked, obviously not expecting that. There was a short pause in which she seemed to be wracking her brain for a way to politely decline. Gai-sensei's chortles about the "Springtime of Youth" and "young love" probably weren't helping much. Luckily for Sakura, help came from an entirely unexpected quarter.

"No!" snapped Ringo, smacking Lee's hands with his own tinier, pudgier ones. "No! Bad!" Lee quickly let go, while Sakura stared down at her agitated nephew, shocked. Tenten surmised that the boy was normally just as quiet as he had been during his introduction. The boy in question grumbled and twisted back around to hug his aunt's neck. Sakura carded through his hair with her fingers, soothing him while giving Lee a helpless smile.

He bowed. "I was foolish to believe that another man could steal ground within your heart with such ease. Ringo-san, I swear that I will someday become a man worthy of your angelic aunt!" How he could say all this so earnestly to a three-year-old, Tenten really had no idea.

"Big words from the deadlast." Scoffed Neji as Ringo glared at his boisterous teammate.

Tenten attempted to ease the tension before things had a chance to escalate. "So, Sakura-san, why did Gai-sensei ask you to meet us here today?"

The pink-haired girl shifted her nephew up once more, this time to glance at her watch. "I usually take a run around the village before class. Gai-sempai usually joins us, and he figured it would be good for you three as well. Actually, we're a minute or two late…"

"Alright!" Gai-sensei cut in. "We must not mar Sakura-chan's pristine attendance record! Make haste, my young pupils; if we cannot finish this run before her class begins, we shall circle the village ten more times!" Sakura laughed, short and sheepish, before taking off once more. The three genin of Team Nine followed quickly on her heels, working hard to find a common pace.

Gai-sensei seemed just crazy enough to follow through on that threat, after all.

* * *

Gai's team slipped into the daily beat almost seamlessly, save for Ringo's enduring distrust of Lee. Sakura certainly liked them well enough. Tenten was funny, in a dry, witty sort of way, and gave her some of the best advice on weaponry and aim that she had ever received. Lee reminded her of a puppy; sweet and over-eager to please. His chakra handicap twisted her heart, though. She supported him however she could, _as a friend_. She still had to stress this last part several times a week. His admiration for her only seemed to grow and her resolution to use weights like he and his sensei didn't help the situation at all.

Neji was a much needed shot of tranquility, albeit one with the oily aftertaste of arrogance and fatalism. His pearly, all-seeing eyes always seemed to be following her, assessing her, studying her. Apparently, he had truly taken Gai's words to heart that first day. Sakura had no idea if he really found the lessons he looked for in her, but he was always respectful and seemingly approving, so she must have been doing something right.

As the months passed, the team bonded and grew together. Sakura couldn't help but feel proud of them, though she knew she hadn't really done much to assist them. Lee was truly shaping up to be a genius of hard work, even without chakra. Through intense training, he became faster than Sakura could ever hope to be. Most of her time was devoted to taking care of Ringo, spending time with him, Tsumo and Yurin, and the Academy and its assorted assignments. The remaining portion belonged almost completely to training and sleep, and wasn't nearly enough for her to devote herself to the same brutal regime.

His sudden taste for green spandex wasn't a wholly unexpected change, given his hero-worship of Gai. Sakura, Tenten, and Neji, however, had all flat out refused The Jumpsuit. When he showed up with a glossy bowl-cut, she had to rub her temples to keep herself from losing it, but by then Sakura had learned not to take his fashion _faux-pas_ as a personal failing.

Neji, for all his speeches of inevitability and futility, had slowly come out of his shell and built a connection with his teammates. Somewhere along that same line, he and Sakura had stumbled into their own little routine, spawned from a series of bumping into each other at a shared favorite haunt. Every few weeks or so, when familial duties permitted it, they visited a tea shop after Team Nine's evening practice to unwind and chat. It was purely platonic; Lee still dogged after Sakura, and every now and again an old fangirl had to be driven away from Neji. Ringo never seemed to object either way, so the other members of Team Nine never saw the need to speculate on a possible deeper meaning to their meetings.

Tenten's accuracy was uncannily precise. She had also recently been introduced by her proud father to the wonderful world of storage seals, and generally carried more metal around on her person than found in the average forge. Tenten was usually the one elected to go and fetch Sakura for evening training, once the pink-haired girl had joined Team Nine in that as well. On these trips, she got to know more about Sakura's family and life.

She also met Tsumo.

The up and coming weapons specialist's slight crush on Neji was outright eclipsed by her "pure love" for the young lawyer. Tsumo, ever the diplomat and charming as always, never directly accepted or refused her blatant affections, opening her up to a deluge of ribbing and good-natured teasing from Sakura. It was well worth the stream of sharp, deadly things, just to see the flustered look on her face.

When Team Nine was deployed on long-term or long-distance missions, she had to admit to feeling a little lonesome, but only a bit. Sakura still had her family to keep her in high spirits, after all. Over the course of the past two years, however, Sakura had broken off the shallow affiliation she had been building up with the other girls in her class who had followed Uchiha Sasuke around. She was still polite to everybody in the class (even The Bastard), but rarely stayed there a moment more than she had to. She ate lunch at home with Ringo, Tsumo, Yurin and on special occasions, Team Nine. She entered and exited the class with the bell. Field trips and group projects, something she had once adored, were now little more than nuisances.

As far as Sakura was concerned, the people she considered to be her friends were all one or more years her senior.

* * *

Sakura didn't realize it, but her steady withdrawal from the class had been noticed by many people. Ino often gave her odd, speculative looks when her back was turned, which became bitter glares when Tenten inevitably met the pink haired kunoichi-in-training at the gate to walk back to her house and prepare for evening training.

Sasuke, beneath thick layers of indifference, was rather relieved at the blessing of having one less annoyance following him around. Naruto, whose crush had never wavered, simply sulked at her sudden, constant lack of spare time. Other reactions varied; Haruno Sakura had always been pegged as a weak, brainy type of girl, so it came as quite the shock when she began winning her spars during practice time. She had climbed up the physical rankings and was currently the uncontested best of the girls in class, both on paper and in action.

Many of the boys had taken careful note of her athletic figure—and not just because of emerging hormones. There was no doubt that she would be an asset to her team, and final exams, graduation and assignment were less than a month away.

Sakura began to wonder if she shouldn't have cut her hair after all; she liked the short pigtails and Tenten had said she looked cute, but the stares boring into her back were beginning to make her doubt the other girl's sincerity.

* * *

Team Nine's first anniversary loomed ever closer and for some reason, the genin seemed to get edgier with each day. Neji snapped at Lee with even more venom than he'd used _before _they were first thrown together. Lee's blows veered off course and demolished nearly a dozen training posts. Tenten's weapons were frequently buried so deep into her targets that in took Gai to yank them out.

It was Ringo who clued Sakura in on what was weighing so heavily on them.

"They're sad." He told his aunt sagely as she dandled him on her knee after one particularly exhausting spar. At his blunt words, all three shinobi stiffened. Sakura just laughed.

"Oh? And why's that?" They didn't seem the least bit sad to her. They were a little tense, sure, but nowhere near anything she would call depressed.

"Sacchan's going away. The Big Guy's sad too." Her amusement died almost instantaneously. She looked around, but her three sempai were suddenly utterly absorbed in their individual training. A shadow fell over the two of them and Sakura glanced up at her previous opponent instead. Ringo followed suit, nodding his head in satisfaction. "See? Big Guy's _really_ sad."

Gai was crying _again_, she noticed before she was dragged into one of the flamboyant jounin's signature embraces.

"Oh!" he choked out. "Oh, you have grown so much since that fateful day we first met, Sakura-chan! To think, I shall have to step aside and allow another to guide you upon your journey to become an even greater shinobi…" He began to sob then—actually sob, like the truly bereaved—and Ringo patted the man's cheek consolingly from where he was squashed between them. Gai slowly reigned in the veritable flood he was creating, and began again. "There is no doubt in my mind that your sensei will be proud to have you as their student, and I know that there is a large chance that their training schedule will conflict with our current arrangement. But you must know that if you ever have reason or the time, you shall _always_ have a place open for you here. With us."

Sakura blinked hard. Her eyes felt oddly hot for some reason and her voice seemed to be lodged rather painfully in her throat, so she just nodded. "You'll have to tell us all about it," Tenten spoke up. "Any drama, all about your teammates—" Her voice cut out just as abruptly and she turned back to the straw dummy she had been so intent on mangling. Neji and Lee murmured their agreement, actually sharing the same decibel level for once.

It was all Sakura could do not to cry—she loved these people, really she did—and for the first time in their long, odd relationship, her arms rose and she returned the nearly suffocating hug.

* * *

_Alright! I'm officially back into fanfiction, for better or for worse. It's been a few years, but I think that the past few years have seriously improved my writing technique. I'm ready to start a multi-chaptered story._

_...for reals this time._

_Anyways! Drop me a review if you like it so far; I have quite a few things planned out, and feedback is always welcomed._

_Thanks for reading!_


	2. Chapter 1: The Team and the Terror

**Disclaimer:** Naruto and all canon characters referenced here don't belong to me, but Tsumo, Ringo, Yurin and any other OCs that show up here do, unless otherwise disclaimed.

_Last Edited: Sep 7, 2012_

* * *

**Where the Heart Is**

Chapter 1: The Team and the Terror

* * *

_Why do you look so familiar?_

_I could swear that I have seen your face before..._

-"Who Knows" by Avril Lavigne

* * *

The day of Sakura's placement dawned much like any other. She rose, showered, fed herself and Ringo and left breakfast for Tsumo warming in the oven before setting out on her daily run. It was somewhat saddening to think that despite the almost reflexive movements, her routine might end today. Before that melancholy seed of thought could take root, she was brought back to reality by the familiar tug of tiny hands on her shirt. She didn't dare look down for fear of hitting something, but could feel the waves of concern radiating from her taciturn nephew.

She could, however, spare a hand and quickly gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze. He settled and she smiled fondly as the familiar bright red wood of the bridge and the four figures on it came into view.

Really, Sakura was just being silly. Not being able to continue these runs wouldn't be the end of the world. It wasn't even a certainty. If she explained it, her sensei would probably understand. If she was lucky, her team might actually want to join in.

With an extra spring in her step, the new genin sprinted upstream and leapt to her customary spot on the railing. "Good morning!" Sakura chirped. Ringo gave a little wave as the older shinobi returned the greeting. "I have an hour for lunch today, so if you guys aren't doing any missions then, would you mind if we meet up at the usual place?" she might as well make the offer now.

Tenten hesitated. "You don't want to spend it with your new teammates?" She wanted to know. Neji and Lee nodded their agreement.

"Well, I'll be spending nearly every day with them after this," Sakura said truthfully. "I'd rather stock up on time with you guys, while I have the chance."

"Sakura-chan…" Gai's dark eyes glistened as he trembled. After two years, Sakura had more than a vague inkling of what would happen next. Her theory held true when Gai swept her up into a tight embrace. "But of course! We too shall treasure our time with you, for its value rises more and more each day!"

Lee echoed the boisterous declaration of his idol and Tenten laughed. Even as she was lovingly crushed by Konoha's Beautiful Green Beast, Sakura was able to catch a glimpse of the small, pleased smile tugging at the corner of Neji's mouth. She had realized a few months into their acquaintance that he liked being chosen above others, most likely a side effect of the Hyuuga Branch system. A few scant minutes between the birth of his father and uncle had robbed him of the position of heir.

Sakura relaxed in Gai's arms for a while before pointedly patting his back. He let her go and stood back, beaming at her proudly. "Let us now begin our daily run!" Sakura felt Ringo giggle into her neck and let a soft chuckle ring out as she took off once more, this time with four more of her most precious people.

* * *

When she had doubled back to her house, Sakura handed Ringo off to Tsumo. She dropped a kiss onto his messy red curls and hugged Tsumo, which earned her a pat on the head. She double-checked that she had all of her equipment before waving good-bye and setting off for the Academy.

It barely took any time at all, leaping from roof to roof. Sakura had to stifle the urge to shake her head sadly when she remembered a time when it had taken her a whole fifteen minutes. She could barely recall the last time she had simply walked to school like a civilian.

Passing the gate and padding down familiar halls, Sakura stopped and gave the old building one last look. The moment her name fell from The IRUKA's lips, she would no longer be a student here. It was a surprisingly nostalgic thought. Shaking it off, she stepped forward and slid open the door of her classroom for the final time, letting the flood of nervous chatter wash over her as she stepped inside.

"Sakura-chan! Over here!" A loud voice cheered.

She turned and, to her surprise, saw Naruto waving at her from one of the lower rows. The other jumpsuit-clad fanatic in her life had supposedly failed, but the hitai-ate proudly replacing his customary goggles said otherwise. Her eyes caught on the dark-haired boy brooding next to him for a beat, before they found day-glow orange once more. She returned the wave cheerily. "Morning Naruto!"

Her crush on Uchiha Sasuke had been the sugar-wafer type of love common amongst children: sweet, but fairly fragile. She still found him handsome, but his mystique had long since been dispelled for her. Neji was just as attractive, if all she was looking for was eye-candy. She had off-handedly mentioned Sasuke to him once, and the older boy had informed her of the Uchiha clan's tragic end and Sasuke's 'fate' as an avenger.

Her heart broke for him, but the position of broodmare—or Uchiha matriarch, as it would be formally called—held no appeal for her. Ringo was a huge amount of work, and he was just one child; the thought of eight or ten, a meager effort for the restoration of a once-great clan, firmly dissuaded her from any further pursuit.

With that in mind, she accepted Naruto's offer and sat between the two of them. She felt more than saw Sasuke eye her warily for a moment, but determinedly continued her conversation with the blond boy on her right. "So, Mizuki-sensei's gone?" she asked, delighted. She had never liked The Bastard, and never would.

"Yup!" Naruto grinned. "The Old Man told me not to say much, but he's not coming back."

The IRUKA entered then, and the class quieted. He smiled at them, pride shining in his warm brown eyes. "Well, today's the day. You've worked hard and it's paid off; you're now officially shinobi!" He waited for the applause to die down before continuing. "As genin, you will be divided into teams and placed under a jounin sensei. Your squad will complete missions together, and once your sensei decides the time is right, will take the exams to advance to chuunin and jounin. Continue to train hard, and carry yourself with the pride and honor you've all earned!"

The class cheered. Sakura had to swallow a sad sigh; she would really miss The IRUKA the most. When his ex-students finally calmed down, he began announcing the long-awaited teams. Everything seemed normal for the first half of the class's division, silent save for a few whispered prayers, a groan of disappointment, or the occasional high-five of victory. Until one certain name cropped up.

"Team Seven: Uchiha Sasuke,—"

Frantic feminine whispers sprang up as nearly every unassigned girl in the class gave voice to their fervent desire to be with their idol.

"—Uzumaki Naruto,—"

Naruto groaned and slumped forward onto his desk. From up near the back, a pale-eyed girl joined the others in (silent) prayer.

"—and Haruno Sakura. Team Eight—"

Naruto's shout of triumph was lost beneath the screeches of despair and disappointment that popped up. Sakura stared at the two boys beside her, turning from one to the other, before bursting into laughter. _Really,_ she thought as she wiped away a tear of merriment. _What are the odds I would end up sitting **right between **my future teammates?_

"Isn't this great Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked her enthusiastically. Emboldened by her nod of agreement (that was all she could manage, at the moment) he continued on. "Since we're teammates now, we should have lunch together! So we can get to know each other, I mean."

Sakura tried to catch her breath but was interrupted before she could answer.

"It's a good idea."

Sakura blinked, bemused by Sasuke's agreement. He didn't usually approach girls. About _anything_. The death glares currently trying to spontaneously ignite her were a good indication of why. "I'm really sorry," she apologized once she had regained control. "But I already made plans with some friends, since I won't be able to spend as much time with them after today."

Naruto's face fell dejectedly, and Sasuke was obviously surprised by her gentle rejection. Considering how she had acted two years ago, Sakura couldn't blame him. Something almost like approval flickered in his eyes. As she walked away, Sakura was left with the strange feeling that she had just passed some sort of test.

* * *

Kakashi glanced at the charming house in front of him, mentally comparing it to the last two homes he had visited. The Uchiha compound had been as unchanged and eerily silent as ever. It wouldn't kill Sasuke to rehire some of the servants, either; there were houses he didn't even use that had built up quite an impressive layer of dust.

Naruto's apartment had been almost depressingly small, messy beyond belief and poorly stocked in the milk department. It was no wonder the kid was so short.

Sakura's home was nicer than he had expected. It lined the central road with two small stone balconies peeking out over the hustle and bustle of the village's daily comings and goings. In stark contrast with the other abodes he had seen, there appeared to actually be somebody inside as well.

As they waited for an answer to the Sandaime's knock, Kakashi eyed his superior curiously. For him to accompany the jounin to meet Haruno Sakura's family meant that there was something unique about her situation. Normally, no such supervision was needed, save for entering the homes of students without parents or in the case of those with powerful or dangerous relations.

Apparently, mused Kakashi as the door opened and his body automatically slid into a deceptively casual-looking defense position, Sakura was the latter. Very much the latter.

"Good morning, Hokage-sama," _That Man g_reeted, bowing as his dark, slanted eyes flicked to Kakashi. "I take it that…_this_ is Sacchan's new sensei?" There was a subtly mocking emphasis placed on the word, carefully pitched so it wouldn't ring discordant against the bright levity of his tone.

"Indeed it is, Tsumo-kun. This is Hatake Kakashi." his possibly senile leader went on, gesturing to the copy-nin with his pipe as though there was any need for introductions. "Kakashi, Harada Tsumo."

"We've met," Kakashi bit out, pointedly not bowing despite the pleasant smile on his face. And they had, despite this being the first time he had heard _That Man's_ name.

'Harada Tsumo' was possibly the most vicious, cold-blooded assassin to have ever been spawned outside of a hidden village. Known to most only as the Terror of Iron, his victims were left little more than lumpy red puddles. He employed various weapons of all kinds, but his most powerful techniques recorded were the various forms of his chakra blades. He needed no medium to channel his chakra, as opposed to the samurai of his old homeland, and overpowered and disrupted other weapons, slicing through steel and chakra indiscriminately.

Kakashi had failed a grand total of five high-ranked missions in his long and lustrous career, and two of them had marked the first and last times he and the Terror had clashed. They had both been much younger then, though, and this Tsumo was much more dignified than the blood-soaked hellion who had disemboweled seven powerful noble families in one night, as he had been on their second and previous encounter. And Kakashi's Sharingan wasn't a fresh implant any more.

Tsumo smiled brightly, chuckling. "Ah, are you still sore about that?" He had the nerve to look bashful. "No need to worry, Kakashi-san. I haven't slaughtered anybody in _years_ and I certainly wouldn't lay a finger on Sacchan's beloved leader or new instructor."

Kakashi wasn't sure what irritated him the most: the implication that he was afraid of Tsumo, the implication that Tsumo could take him down, the implication that Tsumo was loyal to the village only as long as a little girl was, or the stupid grin on his smug face.

Before he could snap out a properly scathing retort, Tsumo was gracefully ushering them in. "I'm reviewing for an upcoming case, so the kitchen's a mess. If you don't mind a bit of a wait though, I can go scrounge up some tea." The Hokage nodded, and Tsumo swept through a swinging kitchen door. Kakashi caught sight of a mountain of scrolls and loose papers piled onto a wooden table between the back-and-forth motions of the door. To his shock, he recognized them as legal texts and public records.

The Terror of Iron, the vicious child-mercenary whose enemies remains were smeared into the ground…had become a _lawyer?_

Shaking away the shock that accompanied the bizarre revelation, Kakashi instead took the opportunity to survey the living room they had been lead into. The furniture and décor was a tasteful combination of comfort and style, but what caught his eye was the collection of photographs littering the walls.

The one among them all that stood out most pointedly was a sepia photo in a silver oval frame. Closer inspection revealed it to be a wedding photo; due to the monochromatic style, Kakashi could only guess at which parent Sakura had inherited her odd coloring from. The woman was beautiful, with a nest of pale curls beneath her veil. The man beside her was just as striking; his long, pin-straight hair only emphasized his handsome features. Sakura's mother seemed to all but radiate pure joy and excitement even years after the fact, while her father looked almost…_bored_. How he could with such a gorgeous creature on his arm, Kakashi had no idea.

The rest of the photographs starred Sakura and a boy with equally pink hair that grew progressively longer as the pictures became more recent. By the time Sakura looked to be about four or five and her brother thirteen or so, Tsumo had joined the happy scenes. He looked startlingly similar to how he had on their previous encounter (except cleaner), until at about sixteen his hair had been cut into the sleek pageboy cut he currently sported. Every so often, a woman with bright red hair in the bright red garb of a priestess garb posed with them. Kakashi vaguely recognized her.

"Their aunt, Yuriko." Tsumo supplied helpfully as he brought out the tea. "She's the one in charge of the Fire Shrine down the road."

Kakashi eyed the proffered cup for a moment, before taking a tentative sip of the tea. When he detected no poison, he let the soothing flavor of jasmine roll over his tongue. "It's good," he grudgingly admitted. The mercenary bastard had the nerve to beam at him.

"Sacchan got me into drinking it; she's really into health food nowadays. Ah, Hokage-sama, I'm sorry but would you mind terribly…?" He looked at the Sandaime expectantly. The old man coughed sheepishly and put out his pipe.

"My apologies, Tsumo-kun; I had forgotten. How is young Ringo-kun these days?" Kakashi almost asked who Ringo was—almost. Then his eye landed on a more recent photo of Yuriko, Tsumo, Sakura and a red headed toddler who, from his expression, definitely had some connection to his student's father. And possibly the Nara clan as well. A young relative staying here made the request much more reasonable.

"Oh, very well! He just loves his morning time with Sacchan, but it always leaves him tuckered out. He's still napping, actually. He's figured out Sacchan isn't coming home for lunch and apparently decided to sleep until dinner. Wouldn't be the first time…When she's home he's always tottering after her. It's adorable, really."

Sarutobi chuckled appreciatively. "The affection and admiration of young children is always so heartwarming."

Kakashi could no longer restrain the urge top point out a rather important fact they seemed to be glossing over. "Would somebody _please_ explain why the Terror of Iron is posing as my student's civilian guardian?"

Harada had the gall to look offended. "I assure you that my guardianship is _completely_ legitimate, thank you very much. Her parents changed my life, and when I came here to repay that, they had already begun their big trip. And I liked Sacchan and Momo-kun, so I decided to stay. This village is really…_interesting_, y'know?"

Kakashi really had to wonder how that ended with him becoming a damned _lawyer._

* * *

Sakura sneezed several times in rapid succession. She waited a moment before turning back to the table once she felt that the danger had passed.

"Bless you." said Tenten, tossing her a concerned look. Not getting sick, are you?"

"Nah," Sakura shook her head. "I think the curry was just spicier than usual."

"I have no idea why you people put yourselves through that hell-in-a-bowl," sniffed Neji derisively. He had opted for soba instead.

"Spice is the variety of life, my rival!" enthused Lee, already on his fifth bowl. "But fear not! There is no shame in having a low tolerance—"

"That's not even the right phrase," the prodigy shot back hotly. "And I do _not_ have a low tolerance; I simply see no sense in setting my mouth on fire for the sake of—"

"Boys!" boomed Gai. "My cute students must not squabble so! We have to set an example for Sakura-chan in the beautiful and youthful art of team interaction!"

"Yes, Gai-sensei!"

"You'd think," Tenten muttered to the girl in question. "That after being with us for the entire year, you might've gotten the idea by now." Sakura stifled a round of giggles by shoveling a big spoonful of curry into her mouth.

Really, she could only hope that she and Team Seven would get along half as well.

* * *

Kakashi closed his book and glanced up at the sky. He had probably kept his new students waiting long enough. Nodding good-bye to Obito's place on the epitaph, he quickly bounded off towards the Academy. He had to edge past the venomous glare of a chuunin with a scar across the bridge of his nose. Perhaps he had lagged just a little too long this time?

He picked up his pace and halted just outside his assigned classroom. He had to suppress a laugh when he saw what was waiting for him. An eraser? Really?

Shaking his head ruefully—honestly, what kind of idiot did they think he was?—for a moment, he actually considered letting their lame little trap work. It would give him something to hold over them, an excuse to say he disliked them. Which in turn would give _them_ the idea that he had a bad first impression of them and would unconsciously plant the notion that they needed to work hard to change that opinion.

But a strange scenario played through his head before he could step forward and open the door.

"_Welcome home, Sacchan~!" Tsumo sang._

"_I'm back, Tsumo-nii!"Sakura smiled, but it seemed rather forced._

"_Oh dear, whatever is the matter?" Concern practically oozed from his words._

"_Well," Sakura began, with great reluctance. "It's my new sensei…I think I might've drawn the _short straw_, if you know what I mean. He fell for that stupid eraser-in-the-door trick." She sighed and scuffed at the floor dejectedly._

"_There there," consoled Tsumo, drawing her into a comforting hug. "Tsumo-nii will teach you all you need to know about killing people. It's so sad that somebody like…_that_ is being put in charge of children…" His angular features, unbeknownst to the sad, innocent little genin, begin morphing into a wicked smirk. "I suppose fame really isn't everything after all."_

A deft flick of the wrist saw the offensive bit of felt pinned to the other side of the classroom with a kunai. There was no way, he firmly decided as he slammed open the door to reveal three startled preteens, absolutely no way in hell he was going to give that smug free-lance bastard any ammo to mock him with.

"Roof." Kakashi snapped. "Five minutes." He turned on his heel, but couldn't resist one last shot. "And next time? At least use a halfway decent trap. You're _supposed_ to be ninja."

_There_, he thought smugly as a puff of smoke engulfed him. _ Let's see the Terror of Iron find fault with _that.

* * *

Sakura waited until the two boys had started their mad dash to the stairs before calmly walking to the window, opening it, and stepping out. Leisurely, she made her way up the side of the Academy. Once she reached the top, she hoisted herself over the railing and waved cheerily to her sensei. He looked much more relaxed now, if a little surprised.

"You already know how to walk on walls? My, the Academy curriculum sure has changed." He seemed to be smiling, if the way his eye creased was any indication.

She set him straight. "No, I just asked The IR—asked Iruka-sensei for some chakra exercises. My control is really good, but my reserves used to be pretty pathetic." She fidgeted, still not meeting his gaze.

He shifted forward as she sat down, as if to say something, when the door behind them slammed open and the other two members of their team tumbled out, panting hard.

Naruto looked up and let out a shocked (if breathless) cry, pointing at her accusingly. Sasuke stared before twisting his head to look back at the stairs behind them, then back at her. He repeated the motion several times before regaining his cool.

"Full of surprises, isn't she?" Kakashi commented as they staggered over and plopped down on either side of her.

Sakura felt as though he wasn't only talking about her skills, but hadn't the faintest idea as to what else he could mean.

* * *

As his students settled down, Kakashi discretely assessed them. His eye landed first on the last Uchiha.

Uchiha Sasuke. Top male rookie, only known survivor of the massacre six years ago. He resembled Obito fairly strongly, in the carbon copy sort of way so common in the older clans. Ignoring the pang of nostalgia he continued on. The boy was wearing a blue shirt in the traditionally wide-necked style of his clan, _white_ shorts and matching armbands. Kakashi bit back a grimace. He would have to devote a day or two to stealth training on the off chance he ended up passing this squad.

When he glanced at the other boy assigned to him, he mentally revised 'days' to 'weeks'.

Uzumaki Naruto. Deadlast of his class and the container of the Kyuubi. He may have gotten Minato-sensei's coloring, true, but the penchant for bright orange and the long history of pranks pointed to a character that was pure Kushina. Kakshi honestly hoped he would pass these kids, if only for his sake; it had taken him so long to get this far, being failed in the field test and bumped back down to the Academy would either crush him or make him work even harder.

Finally, his gaze rested on their unique kunoichi. Haruno Sakura. Top female rookie, one aunt, one nephew, one bastard ex-assassin guardian. The whereabouts of her parents and brother were unknown and unlisted, other than 'travelling'. She was dressed in a bright red shirt and he inwardly despaired at the fact that the Academy instructors, who apparently felt free to hand out the more advanced techniques, seemed determined to skimp on camouflage training. For God's sake, there was even a _white circle_ on the back. From her home he had surmised that it was a family crest of some sort, but to his seasoned senses it only screamed 'Target!'. It wasn't all bad, though; her spandex shorts and legwarmers were a sensible black, and she was wrapped from forearm to fingertip in bandages, indicating a decent amount of time was clocked in for taijutsu training.

Her hair was just as vibrant as all the pictures indicated, cut short and drawn into two pigtails that jutted out on either side of her slender throat. Wigs and hair-dye would become dear friends of hers on undercover missions.

"Alright!" he clapped, done with his initial survey. "Why don't we start off by introducing ourselves?"

"What do you want to know?" Sakura asked.

"Oh, you know," he replied with a flippant shrug. "Likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future…that sort of thing."

"Then why don't you go first and show us how it's done!" Naruto butted in.

Kakashi sighed and nodded obligingly. "Alright then. I'm Hatake Kakashi. There are some things I like and some I don't. I suppose I have a few hobbies…Dreams for the future?" He chuckled. "Well, that's not really any of your business, is it?"

"So, in the end…" began Naruto, glancing at his teammates for confirmation. "All we learned was his name?"

Sakura had gone pale and was rubbing her temples. "Sometimes that's introduction enough, Naruto."

Kakashi felt inordinately pleased at her obvious distress, before he realized that a genin really shouldn't know about the higher-ranked jounin of the village. He decided to lay the blame for the leak of security firmly on the stupid lawyer's shoulders and pointed to Naruto. "Alright then, mow it's the loud one's turn."

The blond grinned and reached up to adjust his hitai-ate. "The name's Uzumaki naruto! I like instant ramen and the stuff Iruka-sensei buys me at Ichiraku's! I hate the three minutes it takes for instant ramen to cook, and when people annoy me. My main hobby is…uh…pranking." He coughed, somewhat abashed at the still-fresh memory of Kakashi's harsh reprimand. Then he brightened up "And my dream is to be Hokage, so that everybody will acknowledge me!"

_He's certainly grown up interesting,_ Kakashi mused. He jerked his head at the other boy. "You next."

Sasuke didn't even blink. "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There aren't a lot of things I like, and many I dislike. I don't have any hobbies or dreams, but I _do_ have an ambition: to kill a certain man and revive my clan."

Naruto was noticeably suppressing a shiver, but Kakashi wasn't fazed by his small spike of killer intent.

Sakura just sighed a little sadly, and Kakashi was struck with the realization that she _knew_ exactly what Sasuke meant. About the Massacre. He cleared his throat, breaking the slightly awkward silence before it had a chance to fully coalesce, and nodded to her. "And finally, our little miss."

Sakura brushed one of her bright forelocks back, straightening up. "My name is Haruno Sakura. I love my family, my friends, and my—and Tsumo. I dislike slackers, arrogant people who assume things about others, and those who wallow in their own pity. My hobbies are training, hanging out with my friends afterwards, reading, and playing with my nephew. My dream for the future…" She trailed off, frowning. Her tone sharpened a bit. "I dunno. Probably to make at least jounin and to track down my brother and parents some time before Ringo turns twenty."

Kakashi clapped his hands together. "Wonderful! Now that we're all acquainted, there's really something I should probably tell you…" He tried to restrain the evil laughter, really he did. Kind of. "Tomorrow, we'll have a survival test. If you fail, you'll be sent back to the Academy."

"What?" Naruto yelled, outraged. "_Another _test? But we just took our last one!"

Kakashi opened his mouth to disillusion the loud boy, but was beaten to the punch.

"Seriously Naruto? Seriously?" Sakura was shaking her head in dismay. "Weren't you listening to Th—to Iruka-sensei at _all?_ Being a ninja is basically a _series_ of tests. After this, when we're strong enough, we'll have to take the Chuunin Exams to advance, then when we finally clear that hurdle there are the Jounin Exams waiting for us. And after _that_, there are tests for ANBU, for the hunter-nin corps, for the medic-nin programs, and even trials for Hokage candidates. At least this one has 33% pass rate."

Naruto gaped at her in horror—of the future or the statistics Kakashi didn't know—and even Sasuke seemed surprised. The Copy-Nin had to wonder exactly how she had found out that little tidbit. "She's right on that front. Meet me at Training Ground Seven by six. And don't bother eating breakfast; you'll only throw it up later."

And with that ringing in their ears, he vanished.

* * *

"Hey, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, turning towards his crush. "How did you know about that?"

"I was curious about last year's team formations, so I asked around a bit." Actually, she had overheard Neji and Tenten talking about how old classmates who had been sent back were doing. "I don't know all that much, but I did pick up two more gems of information that might be helpful."

"And?" Sasuke wanted to know.

Sakura stood and stretched. "One, Hatake Kakashi has never passed a single squad ever assigned to him. And two…" She glanced back at them as she started towards the stairs. "All of the genin who _did_ pass their field tests stayed in the teams they were originally assigned to. So that pass rate was probably referring to the number of teams, not the ratio in each team. Hopefully." She flashed them a quick smile and pulled open the door, leaving them to contemplate what that could mean for them.

She let the door swing shut and padded down two flights of stairs before she let her grin slip, cursing harshly. Why, of all the jounin in the village, did _Hatake Kakashi_ have to be her sensei?

Sure, his infamous tardiness meant that her daily time with Ringo and Gai's team was safe from disruption, but there was no way Gai wouldn't flip out once she told him. And she rather liked being able to hear properly. That particular capability would be in serious danger if he took her assignment to Team Seven as a 'win' for Kakashi.

She was happy that he seemed skilled, if a little quirky, but why on Earth did her sensei have to be Gai's goddamn Eternal Rival?

* * *

"No_. Way._"

Sakura grit her teeth. "Shut up."

Tenten was too delighted to care. "_Hatake?_ You got _Hatake?_"

"Seriously, go die in a fire. This isn't funny!"

"Oh but it _is_. It so, _totally_ is."

Sakura briefly considered just grabbing the older girl's buns and just _pulling_, but the fact that her nephew was currently using her as a body-pillow quickly dissuaded her. Ringo just looked so cute when he was sleeping that she couldn't bear to disturb him. So Tenten's hair was safe. For the moment.

The two kunoichi were relaxing in Sakura's room after a particularly normal case night dinner (a small part of Sakura despaired over the fact that dinners with Gai had become mundane for her), Sakura sprawled out with Ringo on her bed while Tenten idly swiveled around in her desk chair, trying not laugh maniacally at her kouhai's distress as they waited for Tsumo to return from the courthouse.

Sakura had been twitching slightly ever since meeting her team and had casually evaded talking about them until the boys and Gai had left. Then she filled Tenten in on the situation, hoping for advice and sympathy.

No such luck.

"It sucks," Sakura complained. "From the moment he introduced himself there's been this little voice in my head that sounds _exactly _like Gai-sempai just rambling on and on about youth and scores and contests and _it hasn't stopped yet."_

Tenten tried to assume a pitying expression, but her shoulders shook with poorly concealed mirth. "I don't think you're giving Gai-sensei enough credit. He'd stop within an hour." Her cheek twitched with the urge to grin obnoxiously. "I mean, at some point he'd have to run off and challenge Hatake to a duel for your honor or something, right?"

Sakura gave her a dark look, before sighing. "God, I might not even be able to stay a genin this year." She moaned. "Seriously...an entire _list_ of failed teams. We're so screwed."

Tenten couldn't help it; she cackled.

Silently mourning the loss of her nephew's cute sleeping face, Sakura sat up and pegged the laughing brunette in the face with one of her pillows.

Things went downhill from there.

* * *

Sakura stretched tiredly and stifled a yawn as she lazily munched on an apple. She had taken an hour to do her entire routine and snag breakfast, and staying up late to clean up the aftermath left by her pillow mêlée with Tenten definitely hadn't helped to boost her energy levels. Despite her best intentions, she was thirty minutes later than Kakashi had told them to be. She blinked at the twin stares of disbelief she was getting. "...what?"

"You're late." Sasuke accused. "And you ate." Naruto nodded beside him, hungry blue eyes trained on the half-eaten apple in her palm.

"Well, from what I could gather, yesterday wasn't a fluke; Kakashi-sensei is _always_ late. I figured I'd be okay. And, well…" she shrugged, smiling helplessly. "If he's going to push us so hard we'd throw up, I'd rather have that extra boost of energy while I can, you know?"

Their expressions of betrayed disapproval didn't change, but a low, guttural rumble sounded out, echoed by a whining gurgle.

Sakura sighed and dug around in her pack, pulling out two more apples. "You two are so lucky I thought ahead." She chided as she tossed them the fruit. "It's not that much, but let this be a be a lesson to you: always eat as much as you can whenever you can, okay? We're going to need it, against a jounin."

Two assenting grunts and the frantic crunch of teeth on fruit were here only answer.

* * *

Kakashi glanced up, tucking away his favorite book. There was just a bit over an hour until noon; the children should have been feeling the cruel pangs of hunger by now. Whistling a cheery tune, he began making his way towards his old training ground.

When he finally poofed in, everything looked as though it had gone exactly as he planned. The boys were sprawled out, sleepy and irritable. Sakura was, surprisingly (a term he had ironically begun to expect to be associated with her) the only one fully alert, and had been pacing restlessly to defend that achievement. Despite looking like she had some truly choice things to say to him, she visibly forced herself to calm down.

Naruto had no such restraint.

"You're late!" He snapped, leaping up to point at him accusingly.

Kakashi smiled sheepishly, one hand ruffling through his silver mop. "Ah, well you see, I was on my way here when a black cat crossed in front of me, so I had to go around and take a longer route to make sure I wouldn't be cursed…"

There was a pause as they absorbed his explanation.

"…that's total crap." Sasuke finally decided as he pushed himself up from his seat against one of the training logs. His teammates nodded their agreement.

Kakashi huffed. How uncute; weren't kids supposed to be gullible? "Anyways, let's get started now; we don't want to waste any time."

They glared at him darkly.

Honestly. Not cute at _all_.

"Rules?" Sakura bit out. He blamed the lack of respect on her up-bringing. No doubt Harada's very presence had polluted her sense of common decency.

He reached into one of the many handy pockets on his vest and drew out two silver bells. They tinkled softly as he loosely tied them onto the pouch on his hip. "The objective for today is to get a bell from me before this—" A dip into another pocket produced a small alarm clock. "—goes off at noon. Whoever _can't_ get a bell by then will be tied to a stump, forced to watch me eat their lunch in front of them, and sent back to the Academy. I want you all to come at me with the intent to kill. Any questions?"

"The intent to kill?" Naruto repeated, shocked.

"Don't worry," Sakura reassured him. "He's a jounin, after all. We wouldn't be able to hurt him seriously, but anything less than our best might get _us_ hurt." Kakashi mercilessly suppressed the urge to grin smugly. She was a smart one; if she could piece together the true purpose of the test and get the boys to cooperate, he might just get his first team.

"Alright, then. Ready—" He caught the briefest flash of a kunai and sighed, effortlessly twisting away. Naruto was slammed unceremoniously onto the ground, his own blade aimed at his head.

"I didn't say 'go' yet." Kakashi admonished. He sighed once again and shook his head disparagingly before letting the blond up and shoving him towards his other two students. "Okay…begin!"

Sakura's hand flew towards Naruto and, as one, the three disappeared.

* * *

Sakura kept her palm pressed over Naruto's mouth until a slow blink indicated that he could be silent without her help. She jerked her head behind her and he nodded to show that he remembered the plan. Making sure not to be loud or visible, they made their way to the clearing they had all agreed on. Sasuke was waiting for them.

Naruto scowled. "…still don't get why we had to include the bastard…"

Sakura sighed. "Naruto, please." Her fingers tapped a nervous beat on her kunai holster.

The boisterous boy faltered. "Sakura-chan…this guy worries you that much?"

She nodded, rubbing a hand over her mouth and slumping against a tree. "Oh yes. _God,_ yes. Naruto, I wasn't kidding about this guy. He honestly has _never_ passed a genin team before. And that means that something about this test is a trick designed to trip up new graduates. What are we missing about this? Two bells…it makes no sense! Genin teams are always three. It's an impossible test. Two genin can't beat a jounin; twenty couldn't!"

"Two," realized Sasuke, eyes widening in understanding.

"What?" Naruto and Sakura turned to him.

"Two bells. Three genin. He's turning us against one another from the start." Sasuke began to pace. "Just think about it. As genin, we're taught as a whole class or individually—"

"—but not in cooperative units. Not this last year." Sakura finished, lips slowly curving. "That _bastard._" Her voice was full of awed respect.

"…_What?"_ Naruto repeated.

"Teamwork, Naruto." Sakura explained, letting a relieved laugh bubble up. "The thing he's really testing is our ability to work as a _team_."

* * *

Kakashi flicked another page and bit back a delighted (and decidedly unmanly) giggle. Really, it was Jiraiya's best work yet. Junko was such a—

A wave of shuriken slammed into the log he had quickly switched with. His eye ran over the treeline, trying to pinpoint exactly where the attack had come from. Before he could, though, a second wave from an entirely different direction sent him dodging once more.

Right smack into a veritable sea of orange.

Kakashi darted among the mass of orange clones, twisting arms and wrists hard enough to dispel them in bulk. With a yell, a fresh battalion exploded from the trees to replace their fallen brethren. Kakashi smiled; he had found Naruto's position. Quickly switching places with a shadow clone from the outer edge of the mob, he began making his way towards Naruto's compromised hiding place before a burst of fire forced him to dodge away. A soft puff accompanied the dispelling of a henge, revealing one of the many clones to actually be Sasuke.

Frankly, Kakashi was impressed. The average genin usually didn't have the skill to learn a Katon jutsu like the Goukakyu so early on and kage bunshin took so much chakra that such a huge application of them was nearly unheard of. A soft, discordant tinkling drew his attention mid-back flip and his single eye widened at the thin, nearly invisible thread of chakra connected to one of the bells.

He quickly whipped out a kunai, channeling his own chakra into the blade as he severed the weaker line. That done, he lighted briefly on the ground before springing away from the orange mob and the flame-spewing Uchiha once more.

As he landed on a tree bough in a relatively "safe" area, the alarm clock rang.

* * *

Sakura pouted as she sat back against the log. She had been so sure that the fourth technique from The IRUKA's scroll would do the trick. "Sorry," she told the boys beside her. "I really thought we had him there…"

"It's fine," said Sasuke, looking away uncomfortably. "A few more minutes with all of us coming at him at once and we would've gotten him." A note of pride replaced the usual scorn in his quiet voice.

"Yeah, your plan was awesome Sakura-chan!" Naruto agreed.

"Aah?" A bushy, silver head bent down to their level. "So Sakura-chan was the brains of that little operation?"

"Of the _team_." Sakura corrected him, sharing a smirk with the other two members of said unit. Her confidence faltered as Nature once again began to bend to suit the whims of a jounin. Dark, threatening clouds began to gather behind Kakashi, who seemed much, much larger than he had before.

"So smug!" he snapped. "You couldn't even get a_ single BELL!"_ Sakura tried not to whimper at the massive amounts of killing intent radiating from their furious sensei, and felt Naruto gripping her arm tightly. "_YOU ALL—_" Suddenly, the world righted itself, clear blue skies and all. "Pass!"

Sakura let out a slow, shaky breath before letting out a faint laugh and sagging back against her post. Naruto had already jumped up and was proceeding to hoot and holler in victory. "Well," she turned to Sasuke, who had a small grin tugging at his mouth. "That was easier than I thought it would be."

Sasuke snorted and shook his head in disbelief before helping hoist her to her feet. Her new sensei ruffled her hair. "Very well done, Tactician-chan. I take it that chakra string was another one of those extra exercises your old sensei gave you?"

"I have a scroll," she admitted.

"Wonderful!"

Sakura _really_ didn't like the way he was beaming at her. Or the interest burning in the eyes of her teammates.

"You can teach the other two tree-climbing once they're ready!"

_Damn._

* * *

To be honest, Sasuke wasn't sure _what_ to think of the pink-haired girl he had been saddled with, but he was decidedly relieved that she had quit panting after him and had buckled down. She would be an asset to the team, and even the dobe wasn't the total burden he had been dreading. The efficiency with which they had been able to work together was a good omen for future fights; they wouldn't slow him down. And the better they were the more advanced techniques they would all learn. And it was that much sooner they could be promoted.

After that he might be ready to take down Itachi. He refused to think of them as 'friends' (never a good idea when thoughts of Itachi were involved) but he wouldn't absolutely despise their presence.

"Oi, teme, hurry up! You're slowing me and Sakura-chan down!"

…on second thought, he wouldn't absolutely despise _her_ presence. Naruto was obnoxious on his best day.

Sasuke glared darkly at the blond, but picked up the pace. He had only agreed to her invitation to dinner because she technically owed them a rain check for lunch and he didn't particularly feel like ordering take-out again.

"It's fine, Naruto," Sakura called out as she eyed their sensei worriedly. Jounin or not, it was plain to see that she didn't think that reading and walking at the same time would and well. "I have to take a detour anyways."

It wasn't a very long one, with a single stop along the way: Himawari Daycare. Sakura pushed open the gate and indicated that she would only be a moment before ducking into the cheery building. From the corner of his eye, Sasuke saw her smile up at a civilian boy a bit older than them who met her at the door.

He felt his lips curl into a frown. Had she traded one infatuation for another? Really, he thought she was smart enough to know that ninja-civilian relationships rarely ended well. She laughed at something the teen said and he heard the dead-last huff jealously.

He felt rather…silly for jumping to conclusions when a little boy with red hair trotted out from behind the caretaker to latch onto his teammate's leg. Sakura waved a brief goodbye to the civilian and picked up the boy. Once the gate had closed behind her, she turned and displayed her cargo proudly.

"This is Ringo," Sakura informed them, shifting the child—her nephew, she had said before—so that he was facing them instead of clinging to her neck. He looked decidedly unimpressed with the three shinobi who were going to become central members of his aunt's life. After a minute under that unnervingly critical stare (honestly, the kid couldn't be older than _five)_ Ringo gave a soft sigh and smacked away Naruto's finger. The idiot had been trying to make the poker-faced child smile using an arsenal of stupid voices, stupider faces, and various tickle tactics. The younger Haruno turned back to nestle against the elder's neck and let out a small, unhappy grunt.

"I know, I know," Sakura humored him as she began walking again. "Don't worry, we'll be home soon. They're coming to dinner though, so you better be good—or else." She completely negated her threat by planting a quick kiss on the top of his head.

And then she jumped up, using the side of a nearby apartment building as a springboard to Himawari Daycare's open rooftop. Kakashi didn't even glance up as he followed suit. Naruto and Sasuke blinked in shock for a moment, before quickly catching up. Compared to the normal road below, this route was much faster; three minutes of darting from roof to roof saw them hopping down to land in front of an average-sized house.

Sakura pulled out a key and let them in, placing Ringo by a toy box in the corner before stretching and making her way towards a swinging wooden door. "I'm going to get started on dinner; Tsumo should be getting back soon, so please look after Ringo and feel free to poke around."

Sasuke thought he saw Kakashi grimace but the expression was gone before he could be sure.

Interesting.

* * *

Naruto felt like he was going to explode from sheer happiness. He was in _Sakura-chan's house!_ And he would be _eating her cooking!_ He bounced up and down on the couched he had plopped down on, until his new teacher reached over and placed a hand on his head, pushing the boy down and holding him in place until he stopped.

Naruto really wanted to know how he did that without even looking up from his book.

The sound of the door opening made Naruto leap up excitedly. Kakashi's still-present hand, however, threw off his balance. He tumbled over the glass coffee table and skidded to a stop at the feet of a surprised man who had just entered.

Tsu…something paused in the middle of loosening his tie to peer at them curiously. "Team Seven, hm?" he mused, before smiling brightly. It was a _nice_ smile.

"My first impression of you all is…I hate you."

"E-_EH?"_

* * *

_Sorry about the long time between chapters...but personally I think Nineteen pages is well worth the wait!_

_A huge thanks to my new Beta, TheBooyahEffect, as well as NightShadow27, Twisted Musalih, JL, delilah, toxias, Uchiha Sayaka, Moon Symphony, and a BiG FaN for their lovely reviews!_

_Once again, any and all feedback is welcome, so drop a review!_

_Hope you've liked it so far!_


	3. Chapter 2: The Mission and the Mistnin

**Disclaimer:** Naruto and all canon characters referenced here don't belong to me, but Tsumo, Ringo, Yurin and any other OCs that show up here do, unless otherwise disclaimed.

_Last Edited: Sep 7, 2012_

* * *

**Where the Heart Is**

Chapter 2: The Mission and the Mist-nin

* * *

_I know I'm gonna pay for this_

_I can't stand missing out…_

-"Here We Go Again" by Pixie Lott

* * *

All things considered, inviting her team to dinner had gone much better than Sakura had originally expected.

Considering that she had been half-convinced that it would end in fire, tears and copious amounts of blood, that wasn't saying much.

It had been a quiet affair, in stark contrast to the loud ordeals of having Gai and Team 9 over. Naruto seemed paler and more nervous than he had been on the trip over, which she attributed to her positively _beaming_ guardian. The combined high Tsumo had gleaned off of winning a case _and_ getting a new set of people to toy with had caused him to radiate self-satisfaction even more vibrantly than usual, which was honestly quite scary when she stopped to think about it.

Kakashi had been glaring so hard at Tsumo that she had half-feared his eye would pop out of his head and launch itself across the table in some odd kamikaze attempt to wipe the smile off the lawyer's face. She had been so busy chopping up Ringo's food and making sure Naruto didn't crack any of the bowls in his haste to get on Tsumo's good side that she had almost forgot to thank Sasuke for being the only sane male at the table above the age of five.

Luckily she remembered just as she was cleaning up after dessert, and had drawn the pale boy aside as he was leaving. He had flushed at her gratitude for his lack of fear or outright hostility—she had phrased it much more politely, but that was the gist of it, really—and had told her it was nothing, before shoving his hands in his pockets and moving away, doggy bag tucked protectively in the crook of one arm.

Despite their poor performance, Naruto and Kakashi each left with their own tupperware containers of food; Sakura was willing to bet that the three shinobi she had been saddled with could cook well enough to survive in the wilderness, but little more than that. All three were guys who lived on their own, and Kakashi was lazy, Naruto seemed to have a fixation on cheap, instant foods, and Sasuke had probably been so used to having servants as a child that he never bothered to learn for himself.

Plus, they were all far too thin for her liking.

Ringo had given her a new perspective on nutrition. He had been so little when he first arrived she had frantically researched any information on infant health and later development. Luckily, the littlest Haruno had a clean bill of health, but she had been downright hawkeyed about what he ate or even put into his mouth that first year. He was her responsibility, after all, and she wouldn't have been able to stand it if anything happened to the little tyke.

And neither Sasuke nor Naruto, she noted, seemed to be in the proper pink of health for their age group.

Naruto had nearly glowed with joy when he had received his makeshift doggy bag and treated it with surprising delicacy, as if jostling it too much would shatter the hardy plastic within. Even if his constant displays of infatuation annoyed Sakura, that reaction just rubbed her the wrong way. Again, this could be traced back to Ringo; if Momo had decided to just drop him in some random orphanage, would the red head have grown up to be the same as her boisterous teammate? Absurdly grateful for a simple home-cooked meal?

Irritating, mischievous pariah or no, Naruto shouldn't be so starved, be it for attention or decent food. Nobody should.

So Sakura made a mental note to start making a few more bento boxes. It was the least she could do, for her new teammates.

* * *

Maybe—just _maybe_—his view had been a little skewed, but Naruto had expected a certain degree of awesome for his First Mission Ever.

Really, by all rights and rules of the universe, his First Mission Ever _should_ have been mind-blowingly incredible; the stars had been all aligned, everything was going his way! He had _finally_ passed the stupid graduation exam, he had ended up on a team with _Sakura-chan,_ they had _aced_ the stupid field test, and she had even _cooked_ for them! Those were epic, unbelievably wonderful signs, dammit!

…okay, so maybe he had also found out he had a _demon_ in his belly, got stuck with _Sasuke_, got chastised for _unoriginality_ by his new sensei, and Sakura's guardian was a creepy, scary guy who _smiled_ too much and decided not to like him on a whim, but that obviously didn't count as ominous!

Obviously.

The fact that the Old Man had just given them a mission scroll for _painting _a_ goddamn fence_ seemed to state otherwise, but obviously he was just joking. There was no way he would shaft the Future Hokage with such a crappy First Mission Ever. It must be some sort of joke.

_Obviously_.

Really, he had to commend the Old Man! He must have finally embraced that his days in office were rapidly dwindling and decided to start easing himself into Naruto's mantle of Prankster for when he finally took over! And it was a _brilliant_ prank, if a bit hard to believe! Honestly, as if a _Future Hokage_ would debut by painting a _fence!_ It was preposterous, and—and—

…

…why was nobody laughing?

"…ARE YOU _KIDDING_ ME?"

* * *

Sakura groaned and contemplatively eyed the wooden counter of Ichiraku's for a moment, before deciding that no, banging her head against it for a few minutes, while probably incredibly therapeutic, would not help the migraine slowly building beneath her formidable brow.

Plus it might scuff her hitai-ate. And then Naruto would start bitching about village pride again.

A part of her knew she was being unfair; it wasn't _Naruto's_ fault she was at her wits end. Despite his initial petulance at their menial tasks, he got the job done, with minimal whining to boot. She and Sasuke always made sure to be very clear with him on what _not_ to do, as his quick mentality in spars directly translated to a flighty attention span when bored. A simple _'The special herbs Toshiba-san grows are spiky like this, while the weeds are smooth'_ or a _'Sano-san said Kujo likes to chew on metal fences and drag people, so make sure your walking route is_ far, far away _from the area where they test land mines'_ could be indispensable to the success of their mission.

So really, it wasn't _Naruto's_ fault at all. He and Sasuke were perfect angels around each other on missions when their large packages of home-cooked food were threatened. It wasn't _Sasuke's_ fault either; a few sharp raps upside the head and some gentle words quickly impressed upon him the importance of keeping a civil tongue if he didn't want to get duct-taped to his loud teammate and lectured about the importance of _working together_ and _not making little children cry by swearing at each other_.

Sakura knew very well that new puppies could be taught new tricks; it was the old, perverted, lazy, vicious _bastard_ dogs you had to pay special attention to.

Sakura knew a lot of things. One very _fascinating_ tidbit she had unearthed was that genin were only _technically_ required to perform a minimum of eight missions, generally a mix of C- and D-Ranks, before their instructor could put their names down as possible Chuunin Exam participants. Of course, they were more than welcome to do more than that, but only if they really wanted to.

Apparently, Kakashi really, _really_ wanted Team Seven to perform seventeen consecutive D-Ranks.

Even _Gai_ wasn't that harsh; he had put Team Nine through ten straight D-Ranks before showing mercy and landing them a decent C-Rank protecting a merchant caravan. Sakura had idly entertained the thought that her sensei was trying to one up his Eternal Rival.

Tsumo was of the opinion that Kakashi was just a petty, vindictive jackass.

The Sakura who had only heard horror stories of how boring D-Ranks could be would have said that the lawyer was just being silly. The Sakura who had been forced to rescue the same _damn_ stupid cat four _damn_ times saw that he had a good point. A _damn_ good point.

"Cheer up, Sakura-chan!" encouraged Naruto after chewing and swallowing his mouthful of noodles. Proper table manners had been one of the first tricks she had drilled into the blond 'puppy'. "I'm sure we'll get a real mission tomorrow!" But even Naruto's bright grin seemed a little strained.

Sasuke had broken five—oh wait, make that six—pairs of chopsticks during this meal alone, but had refrained from giving voice to his inner thoughts on their assignments. Probably a good thing; from the downright poisonous glares he was giving their sensei, his ramen, the counter and the world in general, Sakura firmly believed that a good 95% of it would need to be censored before being released to the general public.

Sakura mustered a bit of enthusiasm and smiled back. "Yeah, you're probably right." After all, there were only so many D-Ranks Kakashi could take, right? And his evil chuckling was only because he was reading that filthy orange excuse for literature, right?

…right?

* * *

"Well, it looks like our old friend Tora has deigned to pay our dear village another little visit! Since we're so well acquainted, I snatched it up before the others could get to it! Aren't I considerate?"

_WRONG._

Kakashi, Sakura mused as she tried not to scream, cry or stab her teacher, took being a bastard to a whole new level. In fact, he may have very well have cultivated it into an _art form_, if he was serious about his last sentence. Plus, he was practically _sparkling_ when he delivered it. His eye was crinkled up in joy, and he damn near _glittered_ with satisfaction, as if he expected them to rush forward at once and hug him in gratitude for this _unbelievable_ favor.

Disturbingly enough, it made her think of Tsumo.

A small voice that Sakura hadn't heard for a long, _long_ time told her to just go ahead with Operation SENSEI: Shank the Evil, Neurotic and Sadistic Educator Immediately. It hadn't been so long that Sakura had forgotten how to ignore that voice, but the thought was growing more attractive by the second. Her voice was deceptively sweet. "Sensei?"

"_Yes_, Sakura-chan?" The evil neurotic sadistic educator in question sang.

"Shut up and give us our stupid transmitters."

Oddly enough, Kakashi seemed to find personal satisfaction when she spoke to him rudely or harshly. Sakura tried not to look too deeply into that.

It made her think of Tsumo.

* * *

A wise man once said: "There's more than one way to skin a cat."

Team Seven was of the opinion that what he _meant_ was "O thrice-damned hellspawn, how would I scalp thine demon pelt? Let me count the ways…"

Tora was a name that was equal parts joked about, feared, and hated throughout the Leaf Village. The former by those of a high enough rank that they had no reason to ever cross paths with the truant feline, and the latter by the poor souls condemned to his retrieval or to the simple misfortune of being in his way as he fled capture.

He was crafty. He was vicious. He had neither soul nor heart and was swift as the howling gale of a summer's storm with twice the ferocity.

If Tora was a human, he probably would have taken over the world already, then released his iron grip of terror only to conquer it _again_ just as the poor oppressed masses began rejoicing in their false sense of freedom. And then repeat the process again and again.

_For the hell of it._

He was, as any Leaf-nin would vouch, Pure Evil. Even the amused ones would drop their smug smiles and push up their sleeves to display the pale lines left by his needle-sharp claws years before. The _Hokage_ had scars, from when he had, in his naïve benevolence, attempted to sooth the savage beast before handing it off to his Lord's wife.

So really, Sakura couldn't bring herself to feel the least bit guilty about using a mild explosive tag to drive him towards Sasuke, who had a capsule of knock-out gas at the ready. The dose was not, unfortunately, enough to harm the animal, but would hopefully keep him out of commission until he was safely within the loving death-grip of his mistress again.

To be on the safe side, they sent about five of Naruto's clones to gather Tora and made sure to watch him like a hawk on the way to the Tower. It wouldn't be the first time he had played dead, only to escape at the last second.

"I think he got a little tuckered out," Sakura innocently explained to the Fire Lord's wife. "We found him sunning himself and he hasn't so much as twitched. Some kids probably wanted to play with him; they can be persistent."

Lady Shijimi cooed over her drugged-out cat. "Poor baby. He's a little scared of children; trauma from when he was a kitten."

As she thanked the genin and shuffled off with her guards, she failed to see the speculative and vicious gleam that appeared in three different pairs of eyes. After a beat of silence, Kakashi pouted. "Well, now you've gone and taken the fun out of giving you the Tora mission."

Sakura reigned in the impulse to swear at her sensei. She was getting rather good at that.

"Old Man." She turned just in time to see Naruto drop to his knees. The blond gave the Hokage and The IRUKA a desperate look, before pressing his forehead to the floor in supplication. _"Hokage-sama. _I'm begging you, no more of these crap missions! I can't take it anymore! If that evil old witch swats me with her cane again for not stacking her groceries just right, or if we have to watch those devil twins, or _if I ever see that damned cat ever again_ I'm going to go insane, I swear, and God as my witness I will take us all with me."

The Sandaime looked rather perturbed, but seemed to be thinking it over.

"Please."

The Hokage dropped his pipe. As one, the adults in the room slowly turned to stare at Sasuke, who bowed his head. Sakura decided to help her teammate out, and tilted her head to the side, making her eyes large, pleading, and just the tiniest bit glossy. Thank you, kunoichi classes. "Please Hokage-sama? It's…it's just too much."

The Professor blinked. "Child, just how many D-Ranks have you had to do?"

"This was the…" Sakura took a deep, steadying breath, but found that her play acting had become reality. Her mind instinctively recoiled as she tried to recount those horrible missions. Dread and something equally cold and all-consuming crept up from the pit of her stomach, slowly spreading to every inch of her body as the memories flew by.

Helping Tanimoto-san with her groceries and getting their knees caned for 'juvenile sloppiness'.

Walking Kujo and his friends. His _very hyper and enthusiastic_ friends.

Weeding every damn garden that supplied shinobi shops within the village limits.

Going over weekly—_weekly_, dear God—to look after Masashi and Seishi while their mother went to visit their sick grandmother. Whose sister just so happened to be an old spinster with frail arms and the hardest damn cane in the village.

And the _Tora missions._

Sakura let out a whimper and just shook her head. Sasuke took a deep breath and forged on bravely in her place, looking up with haunted eyes. "Eighteen," he said hoarsely. "This marks our _eighteenth consecutive D-rank._"

There was a very long, very loud silence.

"C-Rank escort to the Land of Waves. You leave tomorrow." The Hokage gestured to Iruka, both looking pale under their tans. The chuunin left to collect their client just as Sakura felt her knees give out from sheer relief.

Luckily, her teammates caught her in time, and for one brief and shining moment, they hugged each other, just three kids spared from mind-numbingly boring chores. They quickly crashed back down to earth, however, when a slurred, gruff voice cut through the room.

"A buncha kids? Are you kidding me?"

As one, the teammates slowly detangled from each other and turned to face their ever-so-slightly swaying client for a long, unsettling moment, and just _looked _at him. Then Sakura smiled with deceptive sweetness, parroting back the words of wisdom Kakashi had imparted to Naruto on the day of their first D-Rank, when the hapless blond had shouted out those self-same words.

"Nope! Welcome to reality; it _sucks_, and if you're lucky you'll either move up in life fast, or die. Either way, this mission is just one more bullet on the list of things that currently suck about your life, so let's just focus on crossing it off as quickly as possible, okay?"

The Hokage dropped his pipe once more, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he glared at his chuckling jounin.

* * *

"No." Ringo glared at her sternly, cheeks puffing into a pout.

Sakura was faced with quite the conundrum. On one hand, it would be a bad idea to let her nephew think he was entitled to the last word on how her life should be. On the other…

"No!" The diminutive redhead insisted again, this time crossing his pudgy little arms. Sakura's resolve took a hard blow. It was _so adorable._ She had never seen him so sulky, including the first time she had dropped him off at daycare. She tried to hide her smile as she knelt down to scoop him up, nuzzling against him gently.

"Hey," she said softly, squeezing him a bit. "Come on, kiddo. We knew this was going to happen eventually, and it won't be that long; only a couple weeks, I promise. Just look on the bright side; you'll get to spend time with Aunt Yurin!" It was an unspoken rule that the 'Great' in front of the title was silent. Yuriko absolutely refused to consider the idea that she had ever aged past twenty-two.

The little boy held out for a few moments longer before her soft cajoling wore him down and he snuggled into the hug. "…promise you'll come back?" he mumbled, not moving away from her shoulder.

"I will," She smiled.

"Promise!" He repeated fiercely, more enthusiastic than she had ever heard him. He leaned back and she could see a small gloss to his eyes and miniscule trembling in his jaw that belied his normal deadpan expression. "You can't leave until you promise to come back! In a _few_ weeks!"

Sakura blinked down at him, bewildered, before she finally figured out what the problem was. The last time any member of their family had walked out the village gates, they had never come back. "Okay Ringo," she said, squeezing him back against her and blinking furiously. "Okay. I promise. I'll be back in a few weeks, don't you worry."

She could barely remember her parents anymore—her father's soft, low laugh, her mother's favorite perfume—bits and pieces that went along with memories encased in cold glass, so it was hard to really resent them. It would be like resenting an old tile from the roof that vanished; it hadn't been doing much before it was missed. But then and there, with her nephew clinging to her for dear life and scared of being left alone, Sakura renewed her vow to herself. Some how, someday, she _would_ track down her errant family members.

And once she did, they had better have some damn good reasons for taking off like that.

* * *

Sakura raced towards the village gates as fast as she could, glancing over her shoulder every so often. She had her sensei's sleeve in a death grip, all but dragging him along behind her. He had tried to catch her attention several times, but she paid him no heed, too caught up in her panicked paranoia to pay him the necessary attention. The tightness gripping her heart finally relaxed when the bright clothes of her more verbose teammate came into view. Naruto and Sasuke were already there, thank god, and looked to be on the verge of strangling their client.

With a soft, relieved sigh, Sakura dropped down from the roofs in front of them, fingers still locked around their teacher's wrist. "Okay!" she cheered, raising a fist and ignoring the stunned looks on the trio's faces. "We're all here, so let's hit the trails!"

Shockingly, it was Sasuke who found his voice first. "We've been waiting for fifteen minutes." He said flatly.

"Sorry, it took a while to track down sensei." Sakura apologized, rubbing the back of her head and chancing another nervous glance behind her.

"_Fifteen_ minutes."

"I said sorry!" she snapped, apparently frazzled over something.

"S-Sakura-chan…" Naruto stammered, breaking out of his stupor. "It's _Kakashi-sensei! _We expected a _five hour_ wait!"

"We don't have five hours!" Sakura suddenly snapped. "We're leaving now, before—"

**"WHAT?"**

"…dammit." The pink-haired girl hissed. Her teammates and teacher followed her gaze, eyes moving towards the area of the village where the earth-shaking bellow had originated. It was near where the training fields were, and strangely enough there seemed to be an active thunder cloud over a section of it. "Tenten, you traitor!"

A slow, horrific understanding began to dawn in Kakashi's visible eye. "Sakura, you know—"

**"KAKASHI, MY ETERNAL RIVAL!"** The jounin in question began to look slightly ill. **"THIS TIME, YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR! TO NOT EVEN TELL ME OF THIS..."**

"Less talking, more road-hitting!" Sakura ordered, shoving all four males out to the post ahead of them. They checked out in record time, propelled by something mysterious enough to make even Kakashi up his pace a little. Sakura bullied her counterparts into bracing the old man between them and putting on some extra speed, until the bellows finally began to fade away.

_"…NEVER...Youth…!"_

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, not daring to look back. "What…was that?"

The girl sighed, finally relinquishing her grip on their sensei. "Put it out of your mind until we finish this mission and get back," she told him grimly, eyeing the way they came as though she expected some great rampaging beast to burst from the foliage. "You'll understand all too soon."

Kakashi sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "You know, you could have at least _mentioned_—"

"Ah?" Sakura held up a finger in warning, eyes flashing dangerously, apparently more than ready to enforce the rule she had just made. Kakashi rolled his eye and turned back around, resuming their trek through the treetops. They continued on like that for a while, Tazuna miraculously keeping his whining to a minimum. Whether that was from having to barely have to do anything thanks to Naruto and Sasuke bearing the brunt of his weight as they bounded along or from being cowed by the mad rush from the village, no one knew, or even cared to speculate on.

A few hours later, they passed right by a strange, out-of-place puddle in the middle of the dry, dusty road.

"Sensei?" Sakura spoke up, losing the current round of 'The Quiet Game' that their teacher had finally imposed. Naruto let out a victorious crow before clapping his hand over his mouth in horror. Sasuke smirked and Kakashi sighed, marking his place in his book and stowing it away.

"Give them a minute, Sakura. We threw them for a bit of a loop there."

"Eh?" Naruto's eyes widened just as a large, bladed chain swung into Kakashi's path. The jounin nimbly flipped over it, Sakura immediately dropping into a defensive crouch and whipping out a kunai.

"Naruto, Sasuke, protect Tazuna-san!"

The two immediately shoved the old bridge-builder back against the trunk of the tree they were balanced on, eyes scanning for any possible threats. Kakashi lunged at the ninja that finally appeared; moving so fast that all the children could see was a blur. Sakura felt something shift behind her and whirled around, just barely managing to block the incoming blow. The weapon less than an inch from her face shined sickly, and her pulse raced as her mind made the connection with a unit they always covered at least once a semester in the Academy. _Poison_.

Her feet slid back, achingly slow as the much larger man increased the force, bearing down on her before she finally shoved away and flipped off the branch, hoping to get more space to fight on the ground and lead at least one of the attackers away from their target. She felt her heart leap to her throat in terror when something long and sharps shot out and caught her by the leg in midair. Terror coursed through her veins as she tried to flail into a position to get free, or even kawamari away, but her equilibrium was thrown off by being jerked upside-down through the air so suddenly. Above her, she heard a soft choking noise, and then the two dark, heavy forms of their enemies plummeted past her to land with heavy thumps against the hard, unforgiving road. She twisted to peer up, only to find the beaming face of her sensei, peering back. "Hold tight, Sakura, this will only take a second."

"Do I look like I'm in any position to be going anywhere?" She asked wryly, her fear finally beginning to recede as she was carefully hoisted up. When she was upright once more the jounin set about untangling the chain from her leg, frowning.

"This is a fairly strong poison. We should head back to the village as fast as possible." He declared, ignoring their client's gulp and the anxious looks from the two other parts of their cell.

"I'm fine." Sakura insisted. Kakashi sighed, but she continued before he could reprimand her for trying to put up a tough front. "No, really. Look." She pushed down her torn legwarmer, mentally cringing at having to stitch them back up later, revealing the thick, hardy band of weights strapped around her calf and shin. "Never even pricked me."

Kakashi ruffled her hair, eye-crinkling, before leaping down to tie up their fallen adversaries, motioning for the rest of them to follow. Sakura huffed and patted it back in order before hopping down, momentarily missing the uncharacteristically cooperative silence of the boys as they followed her. Their teacher was just finishing up, making sure the binding were nice and snug before turning around and clapping his hands together with a bright, cheery tone. "Now that that's all taken care of, let's have a chat, shall we Tazuna-san?"

The old drunk gulped.

* * *

"Oh, come _on!"_ Sakura complained, throwing her arms up as the rabbit skittered away. "Doesn't anybody do their homework about regional climates anymore?" The rabbit's eyes hadn't been red, so had it been indigenous to the area, its coat should have been a soft brown this time of the year. She let out a squeak and dropped her arms seconds before the large sword that came spinning out of the mist would have forcibly shortened them.

"Less criticism, Sakura," ordered her sensei, tugging her back towards her teammates. "More protecting the client."

"Oh no," chuckled a sinister voice, followed belatedly by a figure appearing perched on the blade. "Please, don't stop her on my account. There's always room for improvement after all."

"Momochi Zabuza," recognized Kakashi, eye-narrowing. "Now what's the Demon of the Bloody Mist doing running errands for a sleazy businessman like Gato?"

Tha imposing, shirtless man shrugged. "Getting paid enough to settle one of the Legendary Sucker's debts, mainly."

The Copy-nin let out a low whistle, impressed despite himself. Sakura, having heard every single scrap of Tsunade's reputation by her number one rabidly starstruck fangirl, Tenten, merely scoffed. "For just one man? No way he's seriously going to make good on that." Tsumo had investigated him before, and had found that many people who the diminutive tycoon owed large sums of money ended up unable to collect, on account of being unfortunately (and often violently) dead.

"Sakura, what did I just say?"

"Well it's true!"

"Saku—"

"My, my," Kakashi froze, eye widening in horror. _No,_ he begged the heavens. _No please. Not this. Not now. I haven't killed nearly enough people, please!_ Ignoring his silent entreaties, the figure that the damnably familiar voice belonged to hopped down from a tree limb with a small body slung over his shoulder that made Zabuza stiffen. "Sacchan always did manage to stumble into troublesome situations like these without trying."

"Ts…Tsumo…" Sakura stared at him, incredulous. "…what the _hell_ are…how did you even…we used _ninja_ speed!"

"_Harada?"_ Zabuza cut in, eyes lighting in terrible recognition, not unlike what Kakashi had experienced seconds before. A similar string of thought ran through his head, albeit with a fair amount of expletives peppered in. The swordsman hopped down from his weapon, pulling it free and sheathing it behind him protectively. "I thought you were dead."

"Retired, actually," the smiling man corrected as he strode over to pat his bewildered charge on the head. "I got respectable, if you can believe it. Tell me, is this yours?" He shrugged the shoulder holding the slumped form. At the other man's reluctant nod, Tsumo's smile widened. It was a _nice_ smile. He laced the fingers of one hand into Sakura's bright hair, pulling her in close. "Well, this is _mine._ Since we're both rational, thoughtful people—" The lawyer expertly ignored Kakashi's snort of disbelief. "—I think we can work something out, yes?"

There was a long pause. "Fine," the missing-nin ground out.

"Splendid!" Tsumo went back to grinning normally, and Naruto finally let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. "We'll chat in Wave then, shall we?"

"…what the hell is going on?" Sakura wanted to know. Kakashi wished he had an answer for her. He wanted to know too.

God damned mercenary.

* * *

Finally settled in at Tazuna's daughter's house Sakura flopped back on the futon the woman had provided. She had offered to share a room with the pretty assistant of Zabuza who had introduced herself as Haku, which made Tsumo laugh for some reason. For the moment, however, she had it to herself. Her head was spinning, and she took advantage of this brief solitude to try and wrangle it back under control. To say that learning about Tsumo's past was a bit of a shock was possibly the understatement of the year.

It had seemed like a joke at first. It didn't seem possible that her wise-ass guardian could be capable of everything the three men had described. That he could have been so monstrously brutal, when as far back as she could remember his hands had been a gentle comfort to her. That he still wasn't completely out of it, and some of his 'cases' were actually assassinations handed down from the Hokage as a way of 'paying the rent', so to speak.

It seemed Gato was the latest of those.

The frustrated genin scrubbed over her face tiredly, letting out a soft groan. When she really looked back, over everything and all the little quirks he had, it seemed to fit together all too well. The soft sliding of the door drew her out of her troubled musings. Dropping her hands, she offered a polite smile to the lovely brunette hovering by the door. "Hey…Haku-san, right?"

The other girl nodded. "Yes." She hesitated, brushing back one dark, silky lock befor finding her voice again. "Haruno-san, I feel that you may have made a mistake when you offered to share a room with me?"

"Oh?" Sakura wracked her brain for any issue that might come up from it. "What might that be?"

"Haruno-san, I am a boy." Haku told her, flinching slightly when she shot up into a sitting position, eyes huge.

"Like hell you are!" A thin arm shot out and tugged _him(?!)_ down on the bedding with far more strength than the older _boy(?!)_ expected. In his bewilderment, he allowed her to get the drop on him and found himself pinned, with the exotically colored girl straddling his hips. Gripping his wrists in one hand, her other slipped down and delved under the folds of his top, groping around for developing breasts that weren't there.

"H-Haruno-san this is very inappropriate!" Her captive squeaked, cheeks reddening hotly as he struggled beneath her. "Please stop!"

"No!" Sakura snapped, face darkening. "This can't be real; it isn't fair! Neji's bad enough, dammit!"

"…Oh my." Came a mild voice. Both of the young teens on the bed froze, turning slowly to look aback at the door, and more importantly, the audience they had attracted with their brief scuffle. Tsumo peered down at them, one corner of his mouth twitching, while Zabuza seemed to be torn between amusement and the urge to bury his face in his palm, like Kakashi was. Naruto and Sasuke seemed to be broken. "Are we interrupting you two, Sacchan?"

The girl in question went scarlet, snatching back her hands. "This," she began, struggling to keep a level tone. "Is _not_ what it looks like."

"So you weren't feeling up Haku?" Zabuza inquired, crossing his arms and apparently settling for sadistic amusement.

"It's not—" she sputtered. "H-He's a _boy!"_

There was a beat of silence. Tsumo let out a poorly disguised snigger.

"WHAT?" Naruto roared, eyes flashing scarlet briefly. In his rage, he didn't realize that Sasuke's had too.

Haku sighed, wishing that Sakura had thought to get off of him before dropping that particular bombshell. Though, he mused as he watched the silver-haired man restrain his other two charges, it was probably better to have a meat shield, just as long as she didn't scoot back a few inches and discover exactly how much of a boy he really was. Pretty face or no, there was only so much leeway he would get for reacting, even if she had molested him first.

This was what he got for trying to be chivalrous, he supposed.

* * *

Miles away, back in the training grounds of Konoha, a certain team paused in the midst of decimating their targets. It was the largest of the quartet that spoke up first, relaxing from his attack position and lowering his foot from the post in front of him. "Tell me, my youthful disciples, do any of you feel as though you have suddenly gained even more determination to beat your Eternal Rivals?"

Surprisingly it was Neji who spoke up first. "No," he began, pale eyes narrowing. "Though for some reason I feel as though I have been temporarily usurped from a position I didn't know I held." It was a strange, uncomfortable feeling, like an itch between his shoulder blades, and he didn't like it. Not one bit.

"No, Gai-sensei," declared Lee regretfully. "I feel no new burning desire to take down Neji!" Ignoring his teammates disgruntled eye-roll, the green-clad lad raised a fist to the sky. "I do, however, feel as though I have gained a new rival somewhere! I shall persevere to seek them out, Gai-sensei, and challenge them so that we might bolster each other towards our goals together, to fully embrace our Springtime of Youth!"

"Lee!" Gai bellowed as he slung open his arms, proud tears beading at the corners of his eyes.

"Gai-sensei!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

Neji just sighed and shook his head, going back to his shuriken practice.

Tenten had never really stopped. All she had felt was the sudden urge to laugh hysterically at Sakura. But to be honest, she found a reason to feel that way most of the time, these days—Sakura made it too easy, sometimes—so it was easy enough to shove down. She'd find out what happened soon enough, she bet.

Sakura's life was always good for a laugh.

* * *

"Well," said Sakura two days later, toeing Gato's body curiously. "That seemed easy enough."

"Easy." Sasuke echoed flatly. "You call taking down nearly two hundred hired thugs _easy_."

"Well, yeah," Sakura admitted. "I mean, I thought it would take more than an hour. Tsumo, what was that whole—" She made a vague flippy motion with her hand. "Thing with your chakra?"

"Hm?" Her guardian looked up from where he was leaning against the dead man's desk, leafing through a thick stack of what she assumed to be property deeds. "Oh, that? Chakra blades."

"But you didn't use a medium! And you cut through a concrete wall!"

"He's always been able to do that," Zabuza called over his shoulder, voice echoing strangely. He had found the vault, and was taking the pay he had been promised, even though he hadn't actually killed his target. "Wasn't called the Terror of Iron just because he has a smart mouth. And it was over three hundred. Learn to count, Uchiha."

Sasuke flushed, gritting his teeth, but Sakura simply let out an impressed whistle. "Cool."

_"It's something, alright."_ Kakashi grumbled over the headsets.

"Be nice, sensei," she chided. "You and Naruto run into any trouble?"

_"Gato sent some guys after Inari and his mom!"_ Naruto chimed in. _"But me and sensei sent 'em packing. And then there was this whole mob coming, but Inari got all the townspeople rounded up and they scared them all off!"_

"For real?" Sakura was impressed. "Go Inari."

_"I know, right?"_

_"As touching as this all is,"_ interrupted their instructor. _"Let's hurry up and regroup."_

"Yes sir!"

Within half an hour, the entire party was back at Tsunami's house. Sakura was still thrumming with energy, muscles aching pleasantly from the adrenaline rush she had been hit with once the fighting started. Going into a fight prepared was much less terrifying than waiting for an ambush to happen, and none of the guards had been ninja so she had only had to deal with quantity, not quality. The men that she and Sasuke had incapacitated must have regained consciousness and joined up with those that went for the town, because when they were leaving she had only seen the bodies of those felled by Zabuza, Haku, and Tsumo.

The effeminate boy shifted beside her, unused to the thanks and praise currently being heaped upon him. She nudged him playfully, despite the fact that things were still awkward from their episode a few days before. "Cheer up, you're a hero!"

Haku fiddled with his mask. "I wouldn't go that far…"

Sakura wrapped an arm around his shoulders, ignoring the way he stiffened up. "No, you're a _hero_," she stressed. "Because that's an angle that we can spin to get you and Zabuza-san a decent shot at landing a deal like Tsumo's when we drag you back home with us."

"_What?"_

"It's actually probably going to work, now that I think about it. I told Tsumo flat out that he had lost it when he first started explaining it to me. That got me this whole run down on the last two decades of Mist politics, if you can believe it; I got three hours of sleep last night, thanks to him. But, as it turns out, due to some scandal with the last Mizukage and his mental state during his reign, the new one is trying to cement foreign alliances, and Konoha is top of that list. Letting them 'rehabilitate' a man who only wanted to do best for his country and village—" she carefully ignored the swordsman's snort. "—presents a perfect opportunity. They lose nothing they don't already have, and get the current superpower on their side."

Haku blinked. "…it's that simple?"

"Hell no," Sakura dropped her arm, moving to help the construction workers who were heading back to the bridge. "But those are pretty much the bare bones of it."

Haku stared after the girl as she walked away, still a bit bewildered. His master's hand clapped down on his shoulder, and when he looked up he saw something in the man's eyes that he hadn't for years. Understanding. "Women, Haku," Zabuza began sagely. "Are all completely insane, no matter the age or allegiance. The sooner you learn this, the easier life will be for you later on." He shook his head, staring off at some point past the door of Tsunami's house. "Just be glad she doesn't have a double kekkei genkai, like my old teammate. Mei took crazy to a whole new spectrum. It was like a psychotic rainbow."

Miles away, the new Mizukage sneezed.

* * *

At the check-in at the village gates, Sakura shoved her pre-written mission report at her sensei and told him she'd meet them back at the tower in a little bit, ignoring his protests that she had to be at the debriefing and bounding away. She took to the rooftops, ignoring the sounds of Tsumo 'helping' placate Kakashi.

She put on a bit extra speed, pulse pounding a bit harder with each bound. Finally, the large compound she was looking for came into view, and she felt a huge weight lifting off her shoulders as she touched down in front of the ornate entrance. The ridiculous amount of stairs were covered easily with a little chakra augmentation, and while any other day she would have paused to exchange pleasantries with the priestesses milling about the grounds, today Sakura was a girl with a mission.

She made a beeline for the traditional lodgings of the Head Priestess of the shrine, trying and failing to shut out memories of the two heart-breaking months that this place was home before it was apparent that her parents and then Momo wouldn't be coming home. Nearly tripping out of her shoes, she pounded down the long hallway, skidding to a stop in front of a room that was hers, once upon a time.

Taking a deep breath, she slid open the door, heart unclenching as she set eyes on a sulky little figure listlessly poking at some toys on the floor. She cleared her throat. "Hey Ringo," she murmured, eyes softening when the little boy scrambled to get up. "I'm home." She knelt down just in time to get body-slammed by her eager nephew. She didn't say a word about the growing patch of wetness on her shoulder. She just hugged him closer.

She felt another person approach, so she didn't jump when achingly familiar arms encircled the both of them, pulling them against an incense-soaked bosom. "Welcome back, kiddo," Haruno Yuriko said, with a barely noticeable tremor of relief. Sakura couldn't even work up the energy to feel offended that her aunt had feared she would take after the other three wayward members of their family. Had the situation been reversed, Sakura would have too. But it didn't matter anymore.

She was home.

* * *

…_.so, um. A year later, here's the next chapter! Also, it's my birthday today, so nobody can be mad at me for taking so long!_

_Plus I managed to wrap up the Wave arc in __**one**__ chapter. I think that deserves some kudos! That's all for now, but I promise the next chapter won't take an entire year. Scout's honor._

_Thanks for reading! And big thanks for Smile Life Away, Mizz Hime-sama, Twisted Musalih, minniemousemom, jutino, delilah, Ladyrouge214, Song-baka, XxTaintedxDaggerxX, toxias, NightShadow27, MoonShadow396, YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW, Evil Is A Relative Term, and Momo-Is-Awesomesauce for all of their reviews!_


	4. Chapter 3: Childish Exploits and Chuunin

**Disclaimer:** Naruto and all canon characters referenced here don't belong to me, but Tsumo, Ringo, Yurin and any other OCs that show up here do, unless otherwise disclaimed.

_Last Edited: Sep 7, 2012_

* * *

**Where the Heart Is**

Chapter 3: Childish Exploits and Chuunin Exams

* * *

_I don't want to be told to grow up_

_And I don't want to change, I just want to have fun..._

-"Grow Up" by Simple Plan

* * *

Sakura shifted awkwardly, carefully not meeting the accusing stare drilling into her. "You," she finally said, smoothing out her shirt. "Are blowing this completely out of proportion." She looked up, the very picture of poise, and managed not to falter when she saw a condemning finger being leveled at her.

"No, Sakura!" Tenten said, shaking her head. Her eyes were still wide with shock, so it brought to mind the picture of a particularly rabid bear. "No," she repeated. "This is not 'out of proportion.' There is nothing remotely normal about bringing home stray nuke-nin! They aren't puppies, dammit, they are deadly criminals! And worse, they're _Mist _nuke-nin. And they're living in your house, where you and your civilian guardian and nephew sleep at night!" She threw her hands up in the air, gaping with sheer incredulity for a moment before forcing the brunt of her confusion into one final syllable. _"Why?"_

Sakura adjusted Ringo's position on her back, laughing nervously. "Hokage-sama said." And really, that was what it truly boiled down to. When she had finally extricated herself from her aunt and cousin and made her way to her debriefing, she had found the negotiations in full swing. Naruto's glassy-eyed gaze had let her know that the rundown of the mission itself had been completed and shoved aside in favor of the legalities. Tsumo's silver tongue was in fine form, selling Zabuza and Haku—possibly the last of his _bloodline,_ he had stressed pointedly—to the core of the Council. All three of the elders had faces like granite, but Sakura had seen Tsumo in court enough to know the normal signs: he had worn them down. They kept him at it for another hour, for appearances, before assigning him as the pair's legal representative and warden—and executioner, if need be—for the first year of their stay in the village.

Remembering how Tsumo had silenced Naruto with a single _look_ when he finally realized that meant that Zabuza and Haku would be living with his teammate, Sakura had to suppress a laugh. "Don't worry so much," she advised the older girl. "Tsumo is much more capable of taking care of things than you would think."

Tenten looked slightly reassured, but only just. They resumed their pace, however, winding steadily closer to Sakura's home. "I'm just saying," Tenten, her voice lowered cautiously as Sakura unlocked the door. "That you happen to be taking all of this freakishly well. Aren't you even the tiniest bit..._oh._"

"Oh, Sakura-san!" Haku froze at the top of the stairs, his voice colored with embarrassment. He looked as though he had just left the bath, one of his new, masculine kimono-styled tops left loose and open in the front. He hurriedly tugged and tied it shut, smiling pleasantly down at the girls. "Welcome home."

"We're back." Ringo piped up blandly, hooking his chin over Sakura's shoulder as Tenten stared.

"I thought you would be gone a bit longer," Haku explained apologetically. "I hadn't realized you were with a friend…"

"This is Tenten," Sakura introduced, discretely elbowing the other girl into a polite bow. "Tenten, this is one of our new…boarders, Haku-san. Tenten's going to watch Ringo during his nap while we go shopping for dinner. Are Zabuza-san and Tsumo still hung up at the tower?"

"They are," Haku affirmed, brushing back a lock of damp, dark hair. "I ran over some takeout for them about an hour ago and they were still elbow deep in paperwork." He smiled, shaking his head. "It was wise of Harada-san to seal away Zabuza-sama's blade and chakra for the day. If you'll excuse me, I'll finish getting dressed and we can be on our way. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Tenten-san."

After he had bowed and retreated to his new room, Tenten turned mechanically to stare at Sakura again. It took her a moment to find her voice. "…God _damn_, he is _pretty._"

Sakura laughed and let Ringo down, handing him over to her friend. "He's even nicer than he looks, as long as you don't threaten Zabuza-san."

Tenten's expression turned sly. "Hmm…I'm beginning to understand that nonchalant attitude of yours about this whole thing. I'd be pretty okay with living with _that_ too." She laughed as Sakura rolled her eyes. "Oooh, it's like a shoujo manga! Two young teens, brought together under the same roof by strange circumstances!" She clapped her hands, smirking. "Hey, hey, besides just now, have you walked in on him yet while he was—"

"No." Sakura said firmly, trying not to think of their rather awkward first meeting. "And since when do you read shoujo manga? I thought you were a fan of that big monthly shounen thing?"

"I was," Tenten scowled. "Until Gai-sensei found one of my copies and took some of the things shown in it as 'youthful challenges.' Last I saw, he and Lee were doing one-fingered push-ups and handstands." She shook her head. "I begged a volume off of Neji's youngest cousin to escape from the testosterone, and I've been hooked since." She quickly got back on track. "So, has _anything_ hap—"

"I'm ready if you are, Sakura-san." Haku interjected, padding down the stairs. Sakura shot him a grateful look as they exited the house, Tenten's speculative gaze burning into her back.

"Well," the brunette said conversationally, casually shutting the door and herding Ringo up the stairs. "Lee and Neji are totally going to flip next time they're over for dinner."

"Aa." Ringo nodded gravely.

* * *

"So, you've never stayed in the Land of Fire before?" Sakura asked curiously, checking out some of the vegetables being sold at a particular stall in the fresh market. They were small and overpriced, so she merely smiled and the two of them moved on. Haku shifted the groceries they had purchased to one arm in order to weigh one of the melons featured in the next stall before handing it off to Sakura for final approval.

"Zabuza-sama didn't want to be too far from Mist," he explained as Sakura nodded approvingly and paid for the fruit. "He wanted to keep abreast of the latest moves that the previous Mizukage made, so we never ventured this far to the west." He peered into the bags that she was holding, then into his own to make sure that they had everything. "Should we get more eggs?" He wondered. "Zabuza-sama can be a big eater when we aren't on a mission."

"Good plan," Sakura decided, heading back towards the grocery store. It took only a moment to get a second carton, and soon the two were on their way back, chatting idly.

They were stopped by a familiar irritated cry. "Sakura-chan!" Naruto exclaimed, running up to them. "Why are you on a date with that guy?" He glared at Haku, who bore the fiery look patiently. He had plenty of practice en route to the village, after the revelation of his gender came out.

"Stupid." Sakura sighed and kicked her teammate in the ankle, hard. "In what universe is going grocery shopping a date?" she asked him as he doubled to rub the injured area.

He looked up sheepishly. "…oh." His eyes zeroed in on the bags they were laden down with, and he perked up. "Wow, you guys are making a lot! Are we coming over again?" The blonde all but bounced on his toes, apparently all better.

Sakura was almost felt guilty about crushing his hope. Almost. "Sorry, but no." She stifled a laugh at how his face fell. "Tsumo was gone about as long as we were, you know? So the fridge was practically empty when we got home. And now we've got two more mouths to feed on a regular basis, so we needed to stock up." She hesitated, feeling strangely guilty at his pout, and then added, "I'll probably make some lunch boxes for training next week, though. Once things get settled."

"You're the best, Sakura-chan!" Naruto whooped. "Believe it!"

"Okay, okay," Sakura nudged Haku in order to get him to start walking again. "I'll see you around, Naruto."

"See you Sakura-chan! If that guy gives you any trouble, you just let me know and I'll kick his ass, okay?"

"Shut it, moron!"

"You and your teammates must be close," Haku observed with a smile as they left Naruto's whining behind them.

Sakura blinked, before shrugging as best she could. "I suppose," she admitted. "It's only been a few months since we were assigned, so comparatively, yeah. If I were a little older they'd probably drive me to drink, though. They bicker like toddlers, I swear."

Haku laughed, shaking his head. "It's truly admirable, though. You'll have a better dynamic for it in a few years. Those two will be lucky to have you as their leader."

Sakura nearly tripped over her own feet. The groceries she was carrying were only spared an untimely demise by Haku's quick reflexes. He moved away once he had properly steadied her, but flinched back slightly when she whipped around to stare at him incredulously. "L…Leader? Me?" Kakashi had never so much as mentioned such a possibility, but it would be just like him to begin conditioning them surreptitiously.

"Well…yes," Haku nodded, and they picked up their pace once more, taking to the roofs once they left the boisterous market area. "Aren't you? You can diffuse their arguments, they'll listen to your plans, they look for your approval…"

"Because I _feed them_," Sakura stressed. "I'm still nowhere near their level, strength wise." As much as it stung to admit it, she was telling the truth. She would never be able to deepen her chakra reserves to the bottomless abyss Naruto had, and Sasuke's newly awakened Sharingan was already improving his learning curve dramatically.

"Maybe," Haku allowed. "But you're the one who actually knows _how_ to apply those strengths. Don't deny it," he warned good-naturedly as she drew in a breath to protest again. "Zabuza-sama and I have seen you training with them. You're the tactician."

Sakura puffed her reddening cheeks out irritably, but held her tongue. He wasn't wrong; many of the plans they formulated during missions and practice matches against Kakashi came from her end of the think-tank. Most, now that she thought of it. The girl mulled over that thought, fighting off a smile.

Her companion caught it, but restrained himself to a small, teasing smile as they approached the house. Tenten met them at the door, her eyebrows rising pointedly as he hung back to let Sakura in first.

'_What a gentleman!'_ Tenten signed discretely to Sakura as she passed, though any hope of being covert was effectively dashed by her flagrantly wicked grin.

Sakura huffed, trod on the older girl's toes after stepping out of her shoes on principle, and marched off to the kitchen with a slightly bemused Haku and a sniggering Tenten trailing behind her.

* * *

"Do either of you have any experience with kids?" Sakura asked. Naruto and Sasuke froze in the middle of target practice, each veering far off-course due to that unexpected interruption.

Naruto eyed her warily. "Sakura-chan…it feels kind of weird to have _you_ say that. _You're_ the one who's always talking about development and nutrition and 'phases' and stuff."

Sasuke was not nearly so trusting. "We're not babysitting for you," he informed her shortly. "That's what those shinobi you dragged home with you are for."

"Don't be stupid." She rolled her eyes and continued practicing, clicking her tongue in annoyance when she only managed to clip the heart area of the dummy. "I get all that from books. I mean like…practical experience. Ringo's four, but…well, he doesn't ever ask to go out on play dates. The caretakers all say that he gets along well enough with the kids at Himawari, but…" she trailed off, sighing. "I'm just a little worried, you know? I don't want him to grow up a loner."

Sasuke, the walking, non-talking textbook definition of loner, and Naruto, social pariah extraordinaire, shared a look. They waited a few seconds, just in case Sakura's brain needed a little more time to connect the dots. When she merely glanced at them expectantly, Sasuke jerked his head incrementally and Naruto stepped up to the plate, beaming his obnoxiously sunny grin her way. "Don't sweat it, Sakura-chan!" He nearly flashed a thumbs-up but remembered to stop in time; for some reason that gesture always made Sakura cringe. He hooked his hands behind his head instead before barreling on, undaunted. "He's got you, you know? And you're the best aunt anybody could have, believe it!"

Sakura looked down, trying and failing to suppress the proud smile spreading over her face. "Well…yeah, but…"

"I've got it!" Naruto straightened up, as though struck by a bolt of pure genius. Sasuke closed his eyes and turned away, silently mourning the loss of their training session. Nothing good ever came from those words on Naruto's lips, and the ones that followed after were almost physically painful for the dark-haired boy to hear. "Sakura-chan, I just had the greatest idea ever! Believe it!"

Sakura paused from where she was tugging her kunai out of the dummy, slowly turning to look at the blond over her shoulder. Oblivious to Sasuke's internal prayers and covert, longing glances at his own dummy, she took the bait. "What's that, Naruto?"

"Well," said Naruto. "I actually do have a little experience with kids, you know? Er. Well, _a_ kid, anyways. His name's Konohamaru! He's the Old Man's grandkid. Oi," he frowned briefly as his teammates looked at him with raised brows. "Don't bring that up, okay? It bugs him when people do that. Anyways, he's like six or seven or something. If we remind him that Ringo-chan's a civilian, then they can play together, right?"

Sasuke inwardly snorted. Two years was a veritable eternity for little kids, as his teammates seemed to forget. Naruto glared at him, taking his silence the wrong way. "Don't give me that look! Sure, he's a bit of a brat…but he's a good kid!"

"Sasuke never said that he wasn't," Sakura cut in pacifically. "And…well, we might as well give it a shot. I just don't want to see him playing all by himself at home when I come out for training with you guys anymore." She tugged and twisted one of her pigtails worriedly. "We can accompany them for a little, if you really don't think it will work out well."

Sasuke sighed, feeling his plans to train on his own tomorrow afternoon slowly crumble away. For some reason, he wasn't as irritated about it as he would have been a couple months back. Two wasted afternoons couldn't do too much damage, really. And, he rationalized, it wasn't as though there was anything particularly _pressing_ on the horizon.

* * *

"Oh," Kakashi said absently, closing his book with a small snap and interrupting Gai's proud spiel. "That's right, I almost forgot. I'll be putting forth Team Seven under my name for the Chuunin Exams as well." He blinked at the incredulous stares he was getting from the rest of his fellow jounin instructors."Hm? Something wrong?" Immediately, he was flooded with objections.

"Are you _insane_ or—"

"—fresh from the Academy—"

"—not _you_ Hatake—

"_Excuse me,"_ the Hokage said very quietly. The room immediately fell silent. He waited a moment, to make sure nobody would begin muttering, then smiled and marked something in the ledger in front of him. "Thank you. While it warms me to see so many of our shinobi worried for the next generation, the mission records for Team Seven show that they more than meet the requirements for the exam." He smiled fondly, his face creasing. "Personally, I believe the three of them shall go quite far."

Years of practice and the fact that the majority of his face was covered up kept Kakashi from taking up a smug expression, but the air of _'So there!'_ hanging around him was unmistakable. "Thank you, sir," he said respectfully, every inch the professional. "I've expected great things from them, and from the bell test onwards they have yet to disappoint me." He expertly blocked out the memories of their more notable mishaps; those were entertainment at its _finest_, not failures.

From the corner of his eye, Kakashi saw Asuma grit his teeth and twitch his fingers, ostensibly itching for a cigarette to take the edge off of the copy-nin's subtle preening. Slowly, Kakashi counted backwards from eight. When he reached one, he felt more than heard Kurenai step up on his other side and lift her chin proudly.

"I'll be entering Team Eight under my name as well," she declared, daring anybody to protest. Kakashi held back a snort when he saw her mouth tighten irritably when she merely received indulgent smirks. Honestly, he wasn't sure she truly understood what she was signing up her kids for. It was one thing for _Kakashi_ to do it; even if this was the first genin team he had passed, he had trained ANBU before, and had even proctored a handful of Chunin Exams. Kurenai was the youngest and newest of the jounin, and was still settling into her first true command position. Kakashi hoped the lesson she learned from this wouldn't leave her kids _too_ broken. She was a nice enough girl, even if she tried a bit too hard.

'_Speaking of trying too hard…'_ he mused, pointedly not reacting as Asuma stepped forward as well.

"Ah well…Might as well go with the flow. I'll enter Team Ten under my name too." Kakashi inwardly shook his head at the nonchalant proposal, exchanging a glance with the Hokage. He had just so happened to coincidentally wander by the training fields for the other two rookie teams with his chakra cloaked once or twice or five times, tops, after he had heard that Konoha would be hosting the next Exams. From what he had seen, it would be a pity when they would be forcibly reminded of their limitations, really, but he felt that his colleagues would walk away from this experience much wiser.

Kakashi drummed his fingers over the pocket that held his beloved book, and suppressed a less than friendly smile. At least his kids would get some easy pickings to cut their teeth on. And if his darling, vicious little brats (violently) dispelled a few of those nasty little rumors floating around about Sharingan Kakashi going soft in his old age…

Well.

That would just be the cherry on top.

* * *

Sakura squeezed Ringo's hand gently as they walked, smiling down at him. Green met green for a moment and Ringo's mouth twitched perhaps an eighth of a centimeter up on one end. Sakura beamed. It looked like he really _was_ excited with the play-date she had arranged. She was glad; she had been afraid that he would remain listless, or resent her for dragging him out of his room."So, just remember, okay?" She tilted her head down. "Konohamaru-kun is training to be a shinobi, and Naruto said he's gotten his hands on actual shuriken before, so unless it's definitely blunt or made of wood, then you should treat anything he has along those lines like _my_ equipment. And that means…"

"Don't touch." Ringo finished for her, nodding shortly to show he understood.

"Good boy." Sakura ruffled his hair as they finally reached Naruto and Sasuke, who were standing with not one, but three kids, all of whom were hacking up a storm. Sakura's childcare instincts, finely honed by years of paranoia of Ringo falling ill, kicked in with a vengeance. She was crouched down with them in an instant, rubbing and patting backs where she could and murmuring low, calm instructions on how to best clear their lungs without getting choked up. Once that was accomplished and all watery eyes were discretely wiped, she sat back on her heels, Ringo's hand still hooked into the crook of her elbow.

"You guys okay now?" She asked, peering at them carefully to divine the cause of their sudden fit. Her eyes homed in on a familiar, colored powder on the long scarf one of the boys was wearing. She recalled some of Naruto's more noteworthy pranks back in their Academy days and held back a sigh. They would be fine, permitted that they worked on the details of their flashy entrance routine.

"Y-Yeah," said the little boy with the scarf and scruffy brown hair. "We're fine!"

"Thank you Nee-chan!" The girl, a cute redhead in pigtails, smiled shyly.

The other boy sniffled and pushed up his glasses, peering at her. "You're the Boss's teammate, right? Sakura-neechan?"

Sakura ducked her head in greeting, hooking her arm around her nephew and tugging him in front of her. "Yup! Haruno Sakura, at your service! And this is Ringo. I wish I could return the courtesy, but Naruto only told me that Konohamaru-kun might come to play today." She flashed a bright smile their way. "Are you his teammates?" Naruto had spilled about Konohamaru having a tutor; some discreet inquiries had turned up the fact that this 'Ebisu' fellow was teacher to the younger generations of powerful families. There was a certain _something_ in each young face in front of her, something that triggered memories of standing at attention and giving mission reports.

She blinked, snapping out of her thoughts when the small trio struck a pose. Scarf-boy puffed up with pride from his spot. "You're really sharp, Nee-chan! Definitely worthy of being the Boss's teammate!" He grinned, hooking a thumb at his chest. "I'm Konohamaru, the future Hokage!"

The girl at his side winked cutely. "Moegi, the super gorgeous and deadly kunoichi!" Sakura blinked, wondering exactly who had taught a seven year old about things like that.

The final boy sniffled and adjusted his glasses again. "My name's Udon."

"And together, we form…" They shifted into a new pose. "The Konohamaru Corps!"

There was a brief pause on the part of the older trio. Then Sakura and Sasuke shared a look and rounded on their teammate before he could so much as utter a word, speaking as one. _"No."_ Naruto's face fell and his mouth shut, but only briefly. When it looked like he would try protesting again, Sasuke stepped in, scowling.

"We are not devising poses and an elaborate introduction, dobe. Stealing other people's ideas, especially one like…_that,_ is just tacky."

Sakura smiled serenely at the children in front of her, effectively ignoring the scuffle breaking out behind her. "Well, it's very nice to meet all of you." She brushed back a lock of hair and discretely nudged Ringo, who nodded in his characteristically grave way.

"Aa."

The Konohamaru Corps.—and God, wasn't that just the cutest, most egotistical name in the world?—regarded the small redhead for a moment, before sharing a glance and apparently coming to a consensus.

"He's like a little feudal lord!" Moegi squealed, clapping her hands excitedly. "A mini-daimyo!"

"No, no," Konohamaru disagreed, looking the younger boy up and down. "He's not fat. Our Daimyo's really fat and old and stuff, you know? And his hair's all long and in a top knot. Ringo's is all curly." He waved his hands and rushed to clarify, misinterpreting Ringo's curious blink. "Not in a bad way though! Your hair's cooler."

Udon peered at the youngest Haruno closely for a moment, pushing back his glasses. Sakura was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with the grips. "…a prince," he said after a long pause, with finality. By the looks of excitement bubbling in his friends' eyes, he had struck gold.

"Yeah!" hollered Konohamaru, jumping up excitedly. "A prince! A prince fleeing from evil legions—" Sakura bit back a giggle. She remembered very well how much of a staple 'evil legions' were when one was playing ninja. "—who wanna steal his throne! He can be our super-important client! He can ride a horse and swordfight and…and _stuff_ instead of just getting kidnapped if we're ambushed! _Way_ better than having a silly princess to protect like in the stories."

"…wait," interrupted Moegi, from where she was cozying up to the freshly-dubbed 'Prince.' "If Ringo-sama is the Prince, doesn't that make _Nee-chan_ the Princess?" All three exchanged a guilty glance, and Sakura had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from snickering at how troubled they looked by the thought. Naruto had been right; they were great kids.

"Ah!" Konohamaru snapped his fingers before pointing at Sakura dramatically, the fires of victory dancing in his eyes. "Nee-chan's s'posed to be his _aunt_, right? That makes her the Queen!" The other two bobbed their heads in furious understanding, tacitly acknowledging the natural superiority of an elegant queen to a silly princess. "The bad guy'll be trying to marry her to get the throne...and that's the second part of our mission! To stop the wedding and save the Queen!"

Ringo's bland face appeared to darken ever so slightly. "…failure isn't an option."

"Yes, Prince!"

Sakura slowly stood, shaking her head fondly at how much fun her nephew was having already. She glanced over her shoulder and then snorted. "Looks like you two are on Legion and Big Bad duty today." For a moment Sasuke, still in the middle of rubbing Naruto's face into the dirt, looked as though he might be entertaining thoughts of protest. Sakura lifted her eyebrows challengingly, however, and the moment passed. The brunette sighed and stepped off of the blond with one last kick.

"Hold them here, my Minion," Sasuke recited in perfect monotone, barely moving a single facial muscle as he attracted the burning attention of the small quartet. Before Naruto could voice his protest at being relegated to the 'Legion' role instead of Sakura's Evil Fiancé, Sasuke had strolled over to the girl in question and hoisted her onto his shoulder. He paused, just barely remembering, and turned to regard the four kids. "You'll never stop me now," he informed them, bored. "The crown is mine." Then he leapt into the leafy cover of the trees.

With their victory assured by that infamous claim of invulnerability, the Konohamaru Corps and their noble Prince set their sights on Naruto, who just barely had time to twist his fingers into the hand sign for his signature jutsu before they were upon them. From there it was a blur of excited flailing, carefully pulled punches, and breathless, mixed laughter as the 'battle' raged on. From their perch not far off, Sasuke and Sakura sat back and enjoyed the show. The Uchiha tilted his head to the side, studying the pile-driven end of a shadow clone with the scrutinizing intensity of an experienced art critic presented with a new piece. "For a civilian, he's got a pretty powerful kick," Sasuke finally said, impressed despite himself.

Sakura folded her arms, her eyes softening fondly. "He was actually a vicious little biter too for a while, according to Momo-nii's letter. Though, that was probably because he was teething…or because it was Momo-nii." She sighed, shaking her hair. "He's never been good with kids, honestly."

"Then…why would he…"

"Million-ryo question, that." Sakura rolled her eyes. "For more reasons than you know." Shifting uncomfortably, she directed his attention back to the mock-battle ensuing below. "Huh…Moegi-chan is pretty wise for her age."

Sasuke fought off a sympathetic wince and the instinctual urge to nudge his knees together protectively, instead forcing himself to nod impassively. "Their tutor can't be that horrible, then."

"Naruto probably just exaggerated a bit. Or used a stupidly useful trick." She shifted under Sasuke's look. "…what? Look, I know his stunts can be dumb, but I'm not going to deny that they're useful from time to time."

Sasuke turned back to the fight without saying a word, but Sakura could have sworn he had his own little eighth-of-a-centimeter twitch for a second.

* * *

It was a hard battle—the most difficult fight the Konohamaru Corps had ever taken part in—but eventually, after over an hour of relentless battering, the waves of the Enemy broke and thinned. When the final foe fell, flat on his back and panting desperately, they cheered. Their Lord, the Spring Prince, kept his regal composure, of course, but even his Highness exulted in their hard-won victory; one could see it, gleaming coolly in his eyes. After graciously allowing them a few moments to relish their conquest, the Prince calmly drew their attention to their ultimate goal.

"The Queen is waiting," he intoned gravely.

"Is she now?" asked an interested voice. The Corps quickly shoved themselves in front of the Prince defensively, eying the strange pair of shinobi who had 'suddenly' appeared on the fence. (In reality the duo had arrived over twenty minutes ago, and had crouched down to enjoy the entertaining, if strange, scene playing out.)

The blonde with him raised her eyebrows as the Villain's Minion—no, no, the Minions were all slain, that was the Prince's horse, of course—also assumed a defensive position. It was a noble beast, but the true credit lay with the Prince, who could inspire loyalty in even the cruelest and dumbest of animals.

"_HEY!"_

"_Shhh! Horses don't talk, Boss!"_

"_Why do I have to be a horse?"_

"_SHHHH!"_

The interlopers shared a look, then hopped down off the fence. "What exactly does this 'Queen' of yours look like, little Leaves?" the woman, a blonde, inquired. "We might just have _happened_ to see her on our way here." (They had scoffed when they had seen that particularly eye-catching pair of genin playing cards in the park instead of training, but now things were beginning to make a bit more sense.)

The Prince spoke up. "She's pretty, with pink hair and eyes like mine."

The foreigners eyed the Prince warily for a moment, before leaning together and having a short, whispered conference.

"…_freakishly…__**him**__…"_

"…_just the hair…dolt…"_

"…_just saying…posible…know?"_

"…_he…"_

"…_well…but…never…"_

"…_we can…'Queenie'…"_

"_Right."_

Breaking apart once more, the woman's partner, an imposing man trussed up like some sort of kabuki-painted devil cat, spoke up. "Well, we can't just stand idly by when a pretty queen is in trouble. How about you let us join up on this little rescue mission?" He waited patiently as the Konohamaru Corps had their own murmured debate. Then he and his sister ("Temari. And this big lug's Kankuro.") fell in line with the rest of the party. With the directions of their new companions, they made short work of the remaining distance. Soon enough they were arranging themselves discretely around the clearing that held the Villain and their Queen. Konohamaru grit his teeth as he saw the rude and demeaning tone the Villain was using with Her Majesty.

"_This is the __**fourteenth**__ hand that you've won. I call bullshit."_

"_Don't blame me just because you suck, Sasuke."_

"_I do not; you have to be cheating somehow."_

"_Don't hate the player, Uchiha, hate the—__**oi**__! Sharingan off now, you cheater!"_

"_No, we're playing one more round and this time I am __**catching**__ you—"_

"_You know what? Fine. Bring it on, Legendary Sucker Reprised."_

"…_.you did __**not**__ just say that."_

"_Pretty sure I did, actually."_

"…_shut up and give me the deck. I'm shuffling this time."_

"On my mark," he whispered discretely. Moegi and Udon signaled back their understanding, and silently prepared to attack. (Hearing their hushed yells, Sasuke and Sakura exchanged a look and put away the deck of cards, standing and assuming a more dramatic pose. If Sasuke was just the tiniest bit rough when he twisted her arms behind her, Sakura made no protest. Honestly, she'd be pretty pissy too if she sucked at cards as badly as Sasuke did.) Then, with a boisterous battle-cry, the Konohamaru Corps burst forth, the Prince at their side. The horse and the two strangers held back, ostensibly to give long-ranged support.

"You'll have to do better than that," the Villain informed them, dodging back almost effortlessly and pulling the Queen along in front of him like some sick parody of a dance. (Sakura had to make a conscious effort not to slam her head back and break Sasuke's nose. Gai's taijutsu drills demanded no less, even if civilians might consider it a 'dirty trick.') But, when the Villain made to leap away with his ill-begotten bride, Her Majesty finally struck. Twisting her foot into the dirt with surprising solidity, she quickly bent forward, swept a leg back, and sent both herself and her captor into an impromptu cartwheel.

"_What the __**hell**__, Sakura? You're the worst princess ever."_

"_Queen, you jac—you jerk! Queens don't just passively stand by."_

"_Whatever."_

"Well," said the Queen, dusting her hands off as she stepped back and let the Konohamaru Corps rush in to tie up the Villain, who bore it with the defeated (long suffering and irritable) deference of one who knew that their time was up. "You came right in the nick of time. You have my thanks for aiding my nephew, most noble shinobi." She ruffled their hair fondly, before hoisting the Prince onto her hip. "What do you say we go have a feast in honor of your victory?"

The Konohamaru Corps cheered.

* * *

"So, Naruto," Sakura said, smiling genially. "When are you going to introduce me to Ringo's new foreign shinobi friends?" Her chopsticks rapped idly against the edge of her bowl, like the most delicate execution drum roll in the world. Naruto gulped and shrank back because, despite the sweetness in her smile and the lack of any particular emphasis in the question, he knew that he had well and truly screwed up somehow. He made a show of slowly and carefully chewing the ramen he had just shoveled into his mouth, indicating that, as his mouth was full, he was incapable of answering for the time being. Luckily, the sources of his teammate's ire spoke up while he desperately stalled.

"Well, Queenie, the name's Kankuro, and this," the cowled boy flicked the wrist that wasn't busy holding his own utensils towards the blonde girl beside him. "Is my sister, Temari. We're preparing for the Chuunin Exams, obviously, and we figured that we'd scope out the—"

_Snap._

As one, Sakura and Sasuke looked down at their hands, before discarding the broken pairs of chopsticks and signaling for new ones. Naruto, as he was wont to do, spoke for the team after swallowing. "The Chuunin Exams? They're coming up already? Like…for real?" He glanced between the siblings, wild-eyed. They inched back blinking at the almost rabid look in the blond goofball's eyes. "Where, where? Is it in Kumo? Or maybe Mizu? Or, or Iwa? …damn, I hope it's not Iwa, Sakura-chan says there's still a standing kill-on-sight order for our sensei there…wait, wait! What about—"

"You mean, you haven't heard?" Temari scoffed, tossing her head as she eyed the other genin. "It's been planned for _months_, how can you not know it's being held in your own village—and tomorrow, at that?"

The ramen stand, while no means exceptionally boisterous (not counting Naruto's periodic outbursts and inability to maintain an 'indoor voice') descended to a level of quiet that was practically a negative noise. It was the cacophonic silence generally reserved for those suffocating moments immediately following devastatingly offensive offhand comments. The Konohamaru Corps shivered and scooted down a few seats from Sakura and Sasuke. Ringo gently patted his aunt's arm and she forced that dangerously cloying smile back onto her face.

"Sensei," she said, with the gentle, nostalgic sort of affection usually awarded to the dearly departed. "Is so dead." Sasuke nodded, short and sharp, and Naruto made a sound in the back of his throat the likes of which she had only ever heard near the Inuzuka compound before. Turning back to the siblings, who were now eying her team as though they were about to pounce, Sakura began to explain. "Our teacher likes to spring things on us unprepared to see how we react. And he's a sadistic ja—jerk." She amended quickly, glancing at the four children present. "So, honestly we may not know if we're entered in the Exams until the day they start. Maybe the night before, tops."

Temari's eyebrows steadily inched higher and higher. Kankuro let out a low whistle. "Wow, you got a sink-or-swim sensei? That sucks. What's his—"

"Temari. Kankuro." The quiet, rough voice caused the entire ragtag band to jump and whirl around, the siblings about three shades paler than before.

"G-Gaara!" The blonde girl greeted nervously. "We, uh…We were looking around and we found—"

"Shut up." The new boy ordered. Temari promptly shut up.

Meanwhile, as their new foreign acquaintances cowered, Naruto and Sasuke _stared._

And _stared._

Slowly, they turned that stare from the gourd-toting boy to the little kid beside Sakura. While there were definite differences—Ringo had eyebrows, his eyes weren't creepy-pale or lined in black, his hair was curly, not scruffy—there were also eerie similarities. The two Haruno children cocked their heads to the side curiously for a moment, studying the redhead. He tilted his head to the other side, studying them right back, and with a good deal more menace in his eyes. Then Sakura snapped her fingers.

"Oh! You must have blood from the Suna branch!" She realized, looking triumphant. The other genin turned to her, flabbergasted, but she paid them no mind. "Wow, we're probably...well, I think the technical term is like twenty-first-or-more cousins or something, but I'm part of the branch that splintered off to settle a blood debt with the Senju, way back." She stood up and helped Ringo off his stool, beaming. They bowed politely. "My name is Haruno Sakura, and this is Ringo. Nice to meet you, Gaara-san. Wait, wait, hold on a second," she turned around, pulling a pen out of one of her pouches and quickly scrawling something on a paper napkin. She presented it to the redhead, who merely eyed it as though it was an ingeniously disguised explosive tag. "This is our address," she explained. "You and your team should definitely swing by for dinner tonight, if you don't have plans! You can meet Yurin—Haruno Yuriko, she's my aunt and the only other family member still in the village."

Gaara _stared._ His teammates quickly followed suit when he actually moved, slowly and with great hesitance, to take the offered paper. His eyes flickered over the pink-haired girl suspiciously. "….you're insane." He decided finally.

Sakura laughed, shaking her head. "No, I just don't see many relatives. See, we—"

"Ah, there you are, my cute genin!" And just like that, the offensively loud silence returned. Slowly, _very_ slowly, Sakura and her teammates turned to glare at their teacher, who was leaning casually against the counter. Kakashi smiled brightly, waving a small sheaf of papers. "Well, hopefully I won't have to call you that anymore. Can you guess why?"

Sasuke snarled, his eyes flashing red, but Sakura gripped his and Naruto's shoulders to keep them from lunging. If she wasn't allowed to, then they couldn't either.

Taking in their stony expressions and the presence of the foreign genin, Kakashi sighed and dropped the forms on the counter. "Ahh, fine, fine. You've gone and spoiled the surprise of it. Well, just show up at the Academy if you think you're up for it, yeah? No pressure." He dissipated in a puff of smoke as his students lunged forward, but their attention was firmly fixated on the forms. They grunted goodbyes to the foreign siblings as they hurriedly filled out their forms, muttering unkind things (though, a few jabs from Sakura ensured, nothing _too_ bad) about their sensei.

"Ugh, he's the worst sometimes," Naruto groaned, sitting back and rubbing his aching wrist.

"That was Hatake Kakashi, right?" Konohamaru shook his head in sympathy. "That must suck for you guys. My uncle says that guy can be a real jackass."

* * *

_Well, despite my best intentions, it was another year wait. I'm really sorry about that, but senior year kind of punched my life in the face. However! I'll be starting college in late August, so my time will actually be freed up a little! …hopefully. Thanks so much for reading, and if you've been reading since the beginning, then thank you so much for sticking with me! If you go back, you might notice that I've cleaned up the previous chapters a little bit._

_Once again, I'd like to give a big thank you to Boingy, asdf, MoonShadow396, Momo-Is-Awesomesauce, Twisted Musalih, song baka, naive-toots, and Andelevion for all of their reviews!_

_I'm already sketching out the next chapter, so there shouldn't be so much of a wait. _

…_for reals this time._


	5. Chapter 4: Tests and Trust

**Disclaimer:** Naruto and all canon characters referenced here don't belong to me, but Tsumo, Ringo, Yurin and any other OCs that show up here do, unless otherwise disclaimed.

_Last Edited: Sep 7, 2012_

* * *

**Where the Heart Is**

Chapter 4: Tests and Trust

* * *

_The room's hush-hush and now's our moment, take it in, feel it all and hold it._

_Eyes on you, eyes on me, we're doing this right…_

-"All About Us" by He Is We

* * *

Once upon a time, long ago, dinners in the Haruno household had been a simple, quiet affair. If she stretched her memory as far back as she could, Sakura had vague recollections of being sat on a large, hard lap or propped on a soft, round hip as a young boy chattered excitedly. Slightly more substantial and easy to recall were the evening meals she and Momo had taken with Yurin and the other priestesses, filled with quiet murmurs and the cloying scent of incense. More familiar still were the suppers she, Momo and Tsumo had eaten but more often than not, those had been quick and cheap and very rarely at a table, as she hadn't yet learned to cook on her own.

After Momo had left, dinner had become _too_ quiet. Tsumo became more and more engrossed with his work, and it became more and more common for her to eat alone. She had pasted on a smile, but that was the same period of time as when her fixation with Sasuke had peaked. She had been lonely, despite her best efforts. That had eased up when Ringo had arrived, however. Suddenly, there was always somebody with her, set up in a highchair in the kitchen corner, watching her as she flitted around preparing everything. It was a relief, really, and the nights where Tsumo was at home slowly grew again.

Then Gai cannonballed into her life, and the nights where Tsumo still couldn't make it home despite his best efforts got a blast of 'Youthful zeal'. Gai was, surprisingly, a wealth of culinary knowledge, and Sakura had picked up little tricks and tips from him that proved indispensible. When 'dinners with Gai' eventually became 'dinners with Gai and his team' any claim to the label of quiet was promptly torn away. Between Gai and Lee's youthful exclamations, Tenten's well-intentioned snark, and Neji's wry commentary, each night was eventful, to say the least. The single time she had invited her own team over had certainly been an adventure. Nowadays, Tsumo was at dinner every night, as were Zabuza and his protégé. The former nuke-nin mostly complained about how Konoha was filled with 'weak-willed pacifist pansies' and dragged her guardian out to a bar after he finished eating, but Haku always had something interesting to discuss as they finished and cleaned up.

Surveying her current dining companions, namely three very tense foreign shinobi, one very quiet and somewhat intimidating foreign shinobi (who was actually an extended family member), her unruffled-as-ever nephew (who was apparently having a staring contest with their newly-discovered relative), Zabuza (who was leering at Yurin's chest), Haku (who looked a bit bemused at the sudden company), her aunt (who was leering at _Zabuza's_ chest), and Tsumo (who just kept _smiling_), Sakura promptly decided that this probably wouldn't be a very quiet evening meal either.

"Yurin, his face is about eight to fourteen inches higher than that," Sakura informed her aunt cheerfully, sending the first domino toppling. From the corner of her eye, she could swear she saw Tsumo's grin widen.

"If he wanted people to look at his face, then he would wear a shirt, Sacchan," came the absentminded but reasonable reply of the Head Priestess of the village. Nonetheless, she dragged her gaze (a little too slowly to be as innocent as it should be) up to meet the swordsman's gaze and her mouth curled into something that was just a shade too suggestive to be a mere smile.

Zabuza grinned back at her almost lazily, baring his too-sharp teeth and making a show of sitting up and rolling his shoulders. Yurin's eyes promptly dropped down again, following the ripple of toned muscle.

Sakura and Haku exchanged frantically apologetic looks with one another. Tsumo's shoulders shook slightly, but his expression didn't change.

"So!" Sakura looked across the table, grasping at anything that could possibly distract her from the flirtatious trainwreck two seats away. "Temari-san! You, uh…how exactly did you meet your teammates?" She was honestly interested in the older girl's answer, since she seemed to have a couple of years on the boys she was with.

"They're my brothers, actually," Temari told her, gratitude in her eyes for the change of subject. "We usually only take solo or double missions inside the Wind borders for…certain reasons, so we've missed the last few exams. We don't usually team up like this."

"Oh!" Sakura colored. "So…two _more_ cousins. Cool!" On closer inspection, there was something a bit familiar in the slant of Temari's eyes and the curve of her jaw. Kankuro was difficult to place, due to the face paint; it was possible that he took after their other parent.

Baki, their temporary leader, seemed to be anxiously watching Gaara from the corner of his eye. Said redhead was still engaged in a silent battle of will and endurance with _her_ redhead, both of their plates still untouched. She watched as well, hearing Haku engage Kankuro and Temari in a discussion of some sort, possibly about the desert.

Eventually, Gaara blinked.

Baki seemed to be bravely staving off heart failure for some strange reason at this result, but apparently some wordless conversation had passed between the two competitors. Ringo raised his tiger-handled spork in what Sakura could only call acknowledgement, Gaara inclined his head incrementally in the same, and they finally began to eat.

Tsumo tilted his head in a manner that only ever spelled trouble and leaned in, smiling amiably at their eldest guest and striking up a casual conversation, which really couldn't be good news for one or more people currently in the room. Kankuro and Temari had, apparently, begun to flirt with Haku in an effort to determine just what gender he was. Haku, who seemed to know this game well, sidestepped their efforts with an enigmatic little smile. And because Sakura had obviously sinned _horribly_ in a past life, the front of Yurin's traditional haori had slid open at some point, baring an indecent amount of cleavage, and she was trailing her fingers over a wicked-looking band of scar tissue on Zabuza's forearm.

Sakura closed her eyes, shook her head with a smile, and rose to go grab dessert.

Quiet meals were boring, anyways.

* * *

"This is so obvious it's actually a little insulting," Sakura commented mildly. "Quite so, actually. I feel offended. Am I the only one feeling offended here?"

"I feel totally offended," Naruto offered, eying the offensive doorway in question.

"You would have fallen for it hook, line and sinker a month ago," snorted Sasuke, more concerned with discretely evaluating the girl's condition after her evening of fraternizing with the enemy. "Sakura had to cram a year's worth of genjutsu lessons into your thick skull after you got us caught during that training exercise."

Naruto bristled. "It's not my fault Kakashi-sensei is a mean old—"

He was cut off when a ruckus erupted at the offending door. They turned to watch, and Sakura hissed out something under her breath that was vile enough to make her teammates choke. The two chuunin guards at the door had begun bullying a team trying to get in. The girl was normal looking enough, besides the eye-catching pink shirt, and paled beside her teammates. One was clearly a Hyuuga, but Sasuke had no idea how to even begin classifying the other boy. He was clad in some sort of green spandex, and wearing Dobe Grade-garish legwarmers. They seemed fairly weak, at first glance, but further inspection and the exasperated, embarrassed look Sakura was trying to mask suggested otherwise.

"If they're going to be kind enough to make a scene, we might as well take the opportunity to slip by." Sakura tried to play it off casually, and it almost worked. However, Naruto and Sasuke had become intimately familiar with all her little quirks and tells during their time together. A wordless glance between the two conveyed that they would bring it up once they weren't out in the open. The three of them quickly and silently made their way to the stairs while everybody was busy watching the free show. As they were making their way to the true room they were meant to, Sasuke raised the subject.

"Friends of yours?"

"Eh?" Sakura blinked at him, before smiling. "Yeah, they're a year above us. I trained with them and their sensei outside of the Academy. Despite what you just saw back there, they really aren't to be taken lightly. I'm…reasonably sure we could take them if it was a team-versus-team situation, but one-on-one…depending on the match up, you guys might get clobbered."

"That's mean, Sakura-chan!" Naruto gave her a wounded look. "Why just us?"

"Sakura-san already told you that she has trained with us in the past," cut in a cool, slightly condescending tone. Sasuke hated it on principle. He turned to see that the trio from the door had caught up. "That means that she is more informed about our skillsets and preferences, and is in a better position to formulate appropriate countermeasures than either of you."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes and was about to offer to show the Hyuuga just what he considered an 'appropriate countermeasure', but then the green…_Thing_ that had taken on the role of punching bag earlier bounded forward, eyes sparkling.

"Yosh!" The Thing exclaimed. "Sakura-san is truly one of the village's most brilliantly shining stars! It will be an honor to face off against her and her distinguished comrades—and if we do not triumph, I shall do _five hundred_ finger push-ups!" And then he flashed a thumbs-up and grinned. Sasuke would swear on his parents' graves that the older boy's teeth actually _sparkled_.

"That's nice, Lee," said his other teammate absentmindedly, finally speaking up. She hadn't taken her eyes off of Sakura he entire time, and when she spoke again, her voice was vaguely accusatory. "So, is this why we didn't get a pre-Chuunin Exam dinner invite? Or was it because of your…_guests?"_

"Oh," said Naruto, ignoring the puzzled looks of Lee and the Hyuuga like the oblivious fool he was. "You guys already know about the guys from Suna?" Beside him, Sakura pressed a palm over her face to hide her wince. The older brunette was now gaping, obviously searching for some way to articulate all the things she felt about that little revelation. Sasuke knew the feeling well.

Sakura finally dropped her hand. "Tenten, I can explain—"

"You damn well better!" The so-called Tenten exploded. "First Mist nuke-nin, which I still don't really get, no matter how pretty one of them is," at this her teammates' faces turned dark and aghast. "But opponents? _The night before the exam?_ I think we need to seriously re-evaluate your sense of self-preservation! You're supposed to be the _smart_ _one_, dammit!"

"Hey!" Sakura scowled, an admirably closed off and irate expression fashioned Sasuke's favorite. He gave her a 7.8; her eyes were still a shade too expressive despite her best efforts. "Don't treat me like I'm stupid, Tenten. I know there are risks. And I took precautions! But some things are just…just either out of my hands, or can't be avoided! Some things are _important!"_

The Hyuuga frowned, a severe and subtle undercurrent of disapproval radiating from him. Sasuke grudgingly offered up a 9.1 and began to glower at him. "Perhaps your time training under Hatake has been more to your detriment than your benefit," he began, and Sasuke's glower evolved into an outright glare because _that bastard did not just go there._ Only _they_ were allowed to talk shit about their instructor. "I don't believe you would have ever even considered such thoughtless, foolish gambits when you were still training with us. Especially not when they directly endangered your nephew."

Sasuke was surprised to feel a flash of fury streak through him on Sakura's behalf, though perhaps in retrospect he shouldn't have been. He thought briefly to the discussion the three of them had one night somewhere in the middle of the Era of D(espair)-rank Missions, sprawled out on the grass and staring up at the distant and disinterested stars. He thought of the hollow hesitant whispers they had exchanged in the dark, of blood-soaked moons and eyes frozen with bewilderingly potent hatred and watching backs that walked away and never returned, whispers of nightmares and fear and smothering, aching loneliness. He thought about extra-large lunch boxes and bandages always stacked neatly next to his and Naruto's preferred training posts, thought of the look in Sakura's eyes whenever Ringo was mentioned, thought about the way she always made time for the little boy, and more so tried to include her teammates as well, as if to make up for the childhoods they had never gotten to fully enjoy.

He thought of it all, and he felt a flash of heat behind his eyes. Predictably, and probably luckily for all parties involved, it was Naruto who snapped first.

"You need to shut up, asshole! If that's what you think, then you totally wasted your time with Sakura-chan! She loves Ringo more than _anything_, and she's the most thoughtful person _ever_, and you're just—"

"Naruto." The girl in question was quiet, and merely placed a hand on her more rambunctious teammate's shoulder. "That's enough. If we dawdle any longer, we'll be late." Her face was closed off, but Sasuke could see a glimmer of hurt in her eyes all the same, and the heat behind his own grew. He felt a vicious sort of satisfaction when he saw the chagrinned, remorseful look that flashed over the Hyuuga's face that showed that he realized he had taken things one step too far. When Sakura tugged on his sleeve pointedly, he took great pleasure in deliberately turning his back on the lot of them.

Lee tried to call out after them, but Sakura merely increased their pace. He apparently had not yet worked out what he wanted to say in the first place, and did not try to call out again.

"They're just jealous, believe it," Naruto grumbled in his still newly-minted 'inside voice' once they had put a decent amount of distance between the other trio and themselves.

"Probably," Sakura agreed, still unusually subdued. Her eyes slid over, and a glimmer of humor entered them and tugged at her mouth, dispelling a little bit of the tension hanging over the three of them. "By the way, you might want to put those away, Sasuke. No need to advertise one of our big advantages to everybody."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, not following until she made a vague gesture towards her eyes. He stiffened in embarrassment and deactivated his Sharingan, but not even Naruto made a crack about his defensive instinct. They traveled the rest of the way in a slightly less infuriated silence, and met an unsettlingly serious Kakashi in front of the doors.

Sasuke wondered if the man had woken up that morning, decided he wanted to try being a responsible teacher for once, and had caught the argument while monitoring them on their way up, out of sight, or if, like a dog, his somber, defensive posture was merely a natural reaction to the lingering dregs of their own semi-militant attitudes. The Copy-nin did not seem to be in the mood for whimsical and sarcastic banter for once, however, so he bit his tongue.

"Kakashi-sensei." Naruto broke the stalemate first, as he was wont to do, looking up with determined eyes. "We're going to totally kick their asses." The 'believe it' didn't even have to be tacked on, which said quite a lot about the level of confidence in his statement.

Their instructor's face finally creased into a grin. "Oh, yes." Kakashi said. "Yes, I have _every_ confidence that you will. But!" Here he clapped his hands, and all three of them felt a tiny shiver of something like complete and utter _doom_ rattle down their spines. "Remember, there's no pressure. You can always retake the test, provided you don't die, and on the off chance you do fail, then I promise to spend the next six months personally demonstrating all the different ways you _should_ have kicked their asses. Good luck, my cute students! Do me proud."

And then he disappeared, leaving a small puff of smoke and that cheery, barely-veiled threat floating in his wake.

"Well." Sakura blew out a breath, slowly regaining the color in her cheeks. "That was certainly…motivating."

"I feel totally motivated," agreed Naruto as he now eyed the door in front of them (and presumably the faceless opponents behind it) with the desperate, predatory intent of one out to save his own skin. Sasuke offered a low noise of agreement. For one more moment, they let the silence stretch out and did nothing. Then, slowly and with great and terrible purpose, they shared a look.

And then Sakura _smiled._

* * *

Kurenai and Asuma wandered into the observation room provided for the jounin instructors and froze. It was the kunoichi who spoke up first, her voice hollow with hastily masked surprise. "Did we miss the test?" While the pair of them had been…preoccupied, for a time, she was almost certain it hadn't eaten up more than fifteen minutes.

_Almost_ certain, because there, settled in and lounging comfortably in front of the wall of monitors, was Hatake Kakashi. His favorite book was nowhere in sight.

The man himself twisted his head back and offered a casual wave. "Yo. No, it hasn't started yet; I wanted to get a good seat for the show, so I got here a bit early." Asuma made a low croaking noise, his mind balking at the conundrum of this situation. Before he could even attempt something more articulate, however, Kakashi's shoulder twitched about a millimeter and he turned back around. "Ah, my clone just dispelled, so you two had better hurry if you don't want to miss the opening act." He paused, barely noticeably, before continuing. "You too, Gai."

Asuma and Kurenai looked at eachother, looked behind them at the disturbingly solemn Beast, and decided to give up and go sit down. The green-clad shinobi followed after, shooting his Eternal Rival an inscrutable look that was met with a minute incline of the other's head. They would be having words of some sort later, but the less experienced pair of teachers had no particular desire to get involved, and turned their attention to the center screen just in time to see the doors to the classroom get kicked open.

Kakashi chuckled, a low, downright malevolent sound of anticipation. "And so it begins."

* * *

The team commanding the attention of every single opponent was not Team Seven. It was comprised of two girls and a boy, each around the age of fifteen or so, and exuding confidence and derision from every pore. The boy in the center, a roguish fellow with a mane of fluffy orange hair half-heartedly wrangled into a low ponytail at the nape of his neck, slowly lowered his leg and ambled forward. The killing intent and glowers that the dramatic entrance had garnered seemed to roll right off his shoulders, like so much water off a duck's back.

His teammates followed quickly, the busty platinum blonde bouncing after to cling to his arm like a limpet, while the third member of their cell, a stately and traditional beauty with eyes and hair like spilt ink, merely glided along. She barely even deigned to look at the other applicants.

"Daisuke-kuuuuuun~!" The bubbly kunoichi cooed, snuggling against her so-named teammate as he found a patch of wall to hold up, a few feet from the clot of Rookies that had formed. "Why did you have to rush up here? Misa-tan wanted to spend more time _bonding_ before the stupid test!" She pouted, a sultry moue that was apparently as ineffective against him as the impressive bust caging his bicep was.

"If we had lingered any longer we might have risked disqualification, Misato-san," cut in the other girl, her tone vaguely venomous as she snapped open an ornate tessen. "You _do_ remember our purpose, do you not?"

Misato puffed out her cheeks, glaring. "Mou, Kimi-pyon is _such_ a total buzz-kill!"

The brunette snapped her fan closed, eyes blazing. "My name is _Kimigiku_ you idiot,_" _she hissed. "And I will thank you to use it. Not _Kimi-pyon_, or _Ki-chan_, or _Migukkun,_ or any such nonsense!" The pair glowered at each other for a moment, before their teammate broke the stalemate with a sigh.

"You guys are being pests," Daisuke informed them, his free hand coming up to lazily knead at the back of his neck. "Now everybody will think we're annoying. Damn, and after all the trouble I went to for the sake of making a good first impression…" He frowned, tilting his head back to glare at the ceiling again, as if it had been personally responsible for the crick he had developed.

It wasn't much, and he never broke monotone, but it was apparently enough to diffuse the tension between the two beauties. Kimigiku sniffed haughtily and slid her fan open once more, this time casually instead of aggressively, and moved to stand beside him, opposite of Misato. "You just wanted to kick in a door."

"That too," he agreed readily enough. "But what I said sounded cooler."

"Daisuke-kun is always cool!" Misato chirped, snuggling up to him yet again. "That's why he's Misa-tan's Absolute Number One!"

The novelty of the somewhat obnoxiously eye-catching team was beginning to wear off, but not quickly. Because of this, it was a markedly reduced number of eyes that turned to regard the quiet arrival of a somewhat harried-looking Team Seven. The three gravitated towards the other Rookies, who were a bit disturbed by the way their old classmates were looking at the team who had entered ahead of them. Naruto's jaw was clenched shut, and his face reddened and paled in gradual cycles as he struggled to remain calm. Sakura's arms were folded tightly, across her chest and her posture was tense, as if just waiting for the right trigger. And if Sakura was wound up, Sasuke was a hair from snapping and lunging across the room.

The large, quickly-forming bruise on the side of his face and the slightly tender way he had been walking offered a clue as to why.

"Sasuke…w-what happened?" Ino gasped, reaching out to touch the wound worriedly, only to wilt back at the vicious glare tossed her way as payment.

"Don't touch me," he hissed, squaring his shoulders. Ino flinched, taken aback by the outright hostility. Sasuke could be rude at times, even she knew that, but he was never this blunt, except to Naruto at times.

Since Naruto was still fighting and losing the battle of articulating his thoughts, Sakura stepped forward to explain. "We…had a slight incident. Those guys came up behind us in the hallway and…well, you know how Naruto and Sasuke are. One thing led to another, and they got into a fight." She paused to lick her lips, shaking her head slightly. "They got creamed. And then we got mocked for thinking we had any chance of passing."

A strangled growling noise wormed its way out of Naruto's throat. Sakura reached out to pat his shoulder reflexively, and Ino's attention shifted drastically. "Forehead…" Ino began slowly. "Did you go up a size?"

"A size in what?" Sakura asked, her brow furrowing confusedly in a manner that would have been more at home on Naruto's face instead of the top kunoichi of their year. She tracked Ino's gaze and made a choked squawking noise, her face flaming. "Where do you think you're looking?!" Her arms flew back up, covering her chest protectively. "And you're crazy! This is how I always look!"

"Not to be rude, but you all might want to calm down. You're making a bit of a scene, and that's never a good thing for rookies." The interjection came from an older, kindly looking genin sporting glasses. "You guys are marked out enough, since you're fresh from the Academy."

"No,_ really,_" drawled Sasuke, still running about five shades more malicious than the well-intentioned advice deserved. "I would have never have guessed that. Thank you _so_ much." Sakura shot him a warning look and he shut his mouth, turning away with a near-silent huff.

Nonetheless, the grey-haired shinobi merely raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry, sorry. That probably sounded condescending, didn't it? I just wanted to help out. I'm Kabuto, by the way. Yakushi Kabuto."

"I take it that this isn't your first exam, then?" Shikamaru, surprisingly, took the initiative to ask.

"Ah, no." Kabuto laughed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "My seventh, actually." His young audience blinked. Then, recovering, Sakura made an impressed noise.

"You must have loads of experience, then!" Ino chipped in, not wanting to be outdone.

Sasuke made a disgusted sound. "Experience in being a _failure_, maybe," he sneered.

Kiba stepped forward, ticked off by the Uchiha's attitude. "Man, what the hell is with you today? Did getting your ass handed to you lodge that stick up there even further or something." Sasuke actually smirked at that, of all things, before hastily pasting up his normal, chilly demeanor.

"It's none of your business." He shoved his hands in his pockets sullenly, but Kiba, more bewildered than ever, continued pressing the issue.

"Uh, it is when all three of you are acting this weird! You don't even _smell_ right," he said suspiciously. "You barely smell like anything at all."

"It's called having a sensei with canine summons and common sense," Sakura cut in abruptly, hands on her hips. "Kakashi-sensei knows how to track by scent, so it's only natural that he would have taught us how to cov—_eyes up here you damn dog._" She snarled, her eyes narrowing to angry green slits. Beside her, the other two members of her cell bristled protectively.

Kiba complied, arms raised in surrender, but grinning all the same. "Sorry, sorry. I'm gonna have to go with Yamanaka, though; you've definitely grown since the Academy."

The temperature surrounding their little cluster dropped abruptly, the pink haired girl going rigid. "If I didn't have to conserve my chakra," she said tightly. "You would be in whole new definitions of pain right now." Her fingers curled and uncurled, obviously itching to grab a kunai and get to work on a more available and immediate avenue of revenge.

"Is that why your chakra levels are so low?" Hinata asked quietly. She was always quiet, but it was a very sensitive subject to broach, given the circumstances and just who was surrounding them.

Sakura clamped her mouth shut. Naruto took over, wincing. "Yeah…when Sakura-chan said we got creamed, she meant we got _creamed._ She had to use a big chunk of her normal reserves just to get us functional for now, and we're kind of using henge so it doesn't look as bad. They _really_ messed up Sasuke," he explained with a helpless shrug when they turned to look at the battered (false?) appearance of his teammate. "So Sakura-chan made him make himself look less injured instead of uninjured. We don't want to paint a bull's-eye on ourselves straight off, you know?"

"Interesting," mused Kabuto, before smiling gently. "Well, let's see if I can't help you kids out a little." He pulled a blank deck of cards out of a pouch and adjusted his glasses. "Are there any opponents who you are interested in?"

"Sabaku no Gaara," Sasuke said immediately.

"That white-eyed bastard with the girly haircut over there," Naruto said loudly, not even flinching when he earned a glare from the genin in question and a startled squeak from Hinata.

"Team Seven," said Shikamaru, unfazed by the incredulous looks he earned. "I've heard some things over the past couple months." He shrugged. "I want to see how much of that is reliable." The three exchanged a look, but said nothing. Not even they could deny that they had done some rather unbelievable things together.

Kabuto sighed. "Oh, you already know all the names. How boring." Nonetheless, the hand he placed over the deck glowed blue for a brief moment, and five cards slid out. He explained Gaara and Neji's stats first, before turning to Team Seven with an apologetic grin that quickly turned to shock when he glanced over their card. "This…I'm sorry, there must be some error with your records. The card says you three have taken on…_twenty-four _D-ranks, two C-ranks, and one A-rank over the few months your team has been in circulation."

"No, there's an error with our teacher," Sakura corrected him with a strained smile. "Specifically, that he is an unmitigated bastard." Naruto and Sasuke nodded, scowling. "We really have done twenty-f…" She shivered, shaking her head and pressing on. "Twenty-four D-ranks."

"I'm so sorry," said Shikamaru, with feeling.

"What about those guys?" Kiba jerked his head towards the older, eye-catching trio not so far away. "We know their names too. What do their stats look like?"

Kabuto's hand glowed again, but this time no cards made themselves apparent. "That's…strange." The spectacled shinobi frowned, his brow furrowing in irritation. "I don't have any information on them at all. This is embarrassing; usually I have at least something to share…"

"Ah, you wouldn't have access to those sorts of things for us," Daisuke drawled, suddenly far closer than he was a moment before, as were his teammates. "Until just recently, our existence was way above your pay-grade. Or something like that." Misato, still clutching his arm, just tittered.

Kimigiku sniffed derisively. "You children don't need to worry about our strengths or weaknesses; there isn't even the slightest chance that you'll be facing off with us during this exam." Her eyes seemed to convey the unsaid _'you have no chance of even making it that far'_ with all the dismissive apathy she could muster.

Before the genin could bristle up defensively, there was a large ripple of chakra at the front of the classroom, silently commanding the entire mass's attention. The source of it was a large, imposing man in a dark trench coat. "That's enough, brats! It's time for the first part of the Chuunin Exam to begin! Everybody line up and take a seating number from one of the boxes held by your proctors."

* * *

"Uzumaki's shadow clones?" Asuma suggested, rolling an unlit cigarette between his fingers pensively.

"Wouldn't surprise me at all," Kakashi chuckled fondly. "She's a tricky one, our Sakura, and the things she can do with her teammates' abilities at her disposal…well, if I were a lesser ninja or a civilian, I might call it scary."

"So who is behind each disguise?" Kurenai wondered, peering forward to study the bent forms of Misato, Daisuke and Kimigiku as they worked on their tests. "Based on what I've heard of Uchiha-kun and Haruno-kun, it is unlikely for either of them to be playing the part of 'Misato', but I'm not sure which is which beyond that."

Kakashi cocked a brow at her, trying and failing to hide his amusement. "Why, whatever makes you so sure that it's not the decoy team that's the clones?" He offered a look of wide-eyed innocence at the bemused stares that comment earned him. "…what?"

"Kakashi, are you telling me that one of your kids is so good that they can spin and maintain a jutsu that mimics chakra signatures without burning out ten minutes in?" Asuma was incredulous, not to mention suspicious. "Where did you find the time to do that between crushing their souls and happiness?" Twenty-four D-ranks was just cruel, no matter what the reasoning may have been.

"I did no such things," denied Kakashi, seemingly wounded. "But I _did_ teach them how to dampen their chakra signatures to near-negligible levels back before they sucked the fun out of saddling them with the Tora mission, which was a task and a half with Naruto. The upside of it all is he has enough chakra to pump however much he wants into his clones. So…"

"They could just as easily be themselves as the 'decoys'." Asuma finished, sitting back to stare hard at the pink-haired head that concocted such a simple, baffling tactic. If she was herself, that was. He rubbed at his temples, feeling the vicious circle of maybe's begin to knot itself into an insistent migraine.

"Or they could be pretending that they're actually the clones, and pretending to be themselves. Or maybe they—"

"Shut up, I hate you."

Kakashi chuckled, hands raised in mock-surrender, and bit back a frown when he noticed that Gai had not even shifted since sitting down, still staring gravely at the hands clasped loosely between his knees. A subtle prod f the toe got his eyes to shift, at least. Kakashi stood, clapping his hands on his knees, and ambled out into the hallway as Asuma and Kurenai became engrossed in a slightly more sane debate over which squad contained the true Team Seven. A moment later, his strangely diminished Eternal Rival followed suit.

"So, do I get an explanation now?" He was serious now, despite the casual way he slouched against the wall. "I mean, I know that Sakura had a history with your team, but I was never given the impression that there was any particularly bad blood between them. Or has the common definition of 'friends' changed sometime over the last decade, and I missed it?"

"No," sighed Gai, looking twice his age. "No, they have been very dear companions. I feared a confrontation like this would happen sooner or later, however, and alas; it was sooner." He frowned, before admitting, "I feel particularly responsible for the magnitude, of the clash, I'm ashamed to say."

"Oh?" Kakashi blinked, a bit surprised by that. Gai was almost as fanatic towards cooperation and amity between allies as Kakashi himself was.

"I trained with Sakura-chan for a year before being permitted to take on a team," the Beast explained. "And once I did, I made every effort to include her in their training. She was with them from the very day of their formation, an unofficial fourth member in all but missions and writing for an entire year."

"And then she was assigned to me." Kakashi sighed now.

"And then she was assigned to you, yes. But more than that—_worse_ than that, in their eyes—is the fact that she now has legitimate teammates. They feel as though they are being pushed out of her life; losing their footholds, so to speak. While she does accompany us on many morning runs, she has since begun spending more and more with Uchiha-kun and Uzumaki-kun; as is her right, and really, expected." He tacked on, catching Kakashi's slightly narrowed gaze.

"Are you calling me and my boys _homewreckers, _Gai?"

"Certainly not!" Gai protested, clasping his hand to his chest with a spark of his normal passion. "Believe me, I would never cast such unyouthful aspersions upon _any_ of you!" He wilted, minutely. "But…sadly, my team does not want to see the logic of the situation. They merely see their dear comrade slipping away from them, and can only reflexively try to latch on all the tighter."

"Hence the little scene in the hallway." Kakashi concluded, turning the situation over in his head, examining it with new eyes. "I think after the exam we might need to have a few joint training sessions, in the interest of keeping this sort of tension from skyrocketing anymore than it has already." Gai brightened up considerably, no longer disquietingly solemn, and Kakashi tried to assure himself that he had put forth the idea for the benefit of all parties involved.

It had _nothing_ to do with the satisfied glow he felt in his chest at the memory of _Sasuke_ visibly wrestling with the urge to rip someone's throat out for the sake of somebody who had meant almost nothing to him on the day they were first formed.

Certainly not.

They began hashing out tentative, and then competitively agonizing training ideas. Some of them were so inventively cruel that Kakashi felt affronted, in his heart of hearts, that it had taken Gai to act as an impetus for them to come forth. When they finally re-entered the room sometime later, they were just in time to catch a scene that Kakashi had completely and utterly expected.

"_That,"_ Naruto (or the clone pretending to be Naruto) was saying, squinting up at the trench-coated man as he handed in his paper. _"Was what our generation would call a __**dick move**__."_ Sakura sighed and doubled back, hauling him away by the collar. _"A __**dick move**__, Morino!"_ A bunch of muffled syllables, none of them likely to be complimentary, followed after his other teammate clamped a hand over his mouth and doubled the efforts to drag him off-screen after the much more flamboyant second examiner.

"See? From what I've heard, that's completely typical Uzumaki behavior," Asuma insisted.

Kurenai shook her head. "Ah, but that's something that would be typical in a powered-up shadow clone as well. And if you watched closely, you would have seen that 'Kimigiku' was glaring at 'Misato' during that little outburst."

"To be fair, I don't think she really stopped glaring since she finished her test," offered one of the proctors who had slipped in. He shrunk back at the red-eyed glare he earned for his trouble. "S-Sorry."

Kakashi chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. "I'm surprised that the Hyuuga kids didn't figure it out for us."

"Ibiki apparently appreciates a good mindscrew, even if it isn't of his own design." Asuma's fingers tapped an anxious beat on the pocket that held his cigarette carton. "He explicitly stated that dojutsu use would be an 'obvious and flagrant method to cheat'. I mean, the kids still could have used it, taken a single hit and been fine…but that's just not how the Hyuuga mind works, so your kids' little farce held together just fine."

"Excellent," beamed Kakashi. "I'll have to buy him a drink later."

Asuma paused incredulously at the thought of the infamous tab-dodger actually paying for somebody else, before shaking his head. "Well, Mitarashi will shut them down, for sure."

* * *

"Oi!" The risquély garbed examiner barked. "You six! Yeah, with the orange hair and the orange…_everything_. Yeah, you come with me!"

The teams exchanged wary, somewhat dark looks, but followed along after her. She led them to a sealed off tent, then whirled around and stared at them. There was an eerie stillness to that stare, a reptilian patience that implied she could wait until the end of the world without so much as twitching, but the moment _they_ so much as blinked their lives were over.

Then she grinned, clapping her hands together and letting out a loud whoop. "I _like_ you three!" She rested her hands on her hips visibly impressed when the younger team tried to avoid staring at her rather prominent bust while 'Daisuke' shamelessly ogled and his teammates glowered murderously. "You don't miss a beat, do you? Kakashi did a bang-up job. I'm _so_ impressed that I'll even help you out." She fanned out a sheet of papers. "I'm going to leave three release forms and one legitimate scroll here, and then I'm going to get out and start on my snack. Come out when you're done and I'll bring you out to gate 24. Have fun in the Forest, kiddies."

After she left, the six blinked and exchanged a look. There were a few puffs of smoke, and then only a girl, two boys, and three clones remained.

The real Sakura picked up a pen, and filled out a form, as Naruto finally let out the hysterical laughter he had been holding back for so long. Her teammates followed suit, Naruto still chuckling. Wordlessly, she held up her hands, and received two of the most satisfied and excited high-fives to ever be delivered. The next moment a spare blank scroll was dug out of a pack and disguised as a twin of the legitimate Heaven scroll they had been given. After a quiet conference and some further planning, the henges went back up, and two teams strolled out of the tent, glaring murder at each other the whole way.

Mitarashi looked up from her dango, sniggering, and guided them over to the sealed-off gates. Behind them, another team was already being shown in by a proctor. It was a struggle, but Naruto and Sakura managed to restrain the evil, Kakashi-like laughter that threatened to burst forth, at least until she had left.

"You got it?" Sakura asked, rocking back on her heels and attempting to smother her satisfied smirk, with little success.

"I got it," he confirmed, sorting through freshly received memories, after a previously unremarkable mouse that was sniffing around the tent disappeared in a small puff of smoke. "There's a team from Rain like two gates over. They seem like a decent target. Your cousins are off on the other side of the forest. Same with Kiba's team. Shikamaru and the others are a few gates west of us. That creepy team from Grass is closer to the other side than us, and that Kabuto guy is a little further."

"Excellent." Sakura smiled as the bell sounded and the gates slid open. Misato and Naruto twisted their fingers into a familiar, telltale seal, and three more clones popped into existence. Another set of smoke puffs produced a second set of Team Seven, and all three raced into the dark Forest. After a few minutes of single-minded running, and without any physical or vocal signal, all three split off: one set of Team Seven to the north-west, Daisuke's team of towards the direction of the team being targeted, and the final team continuing straight onwards towards the Tower.

Two and a half days later saw that third team lying in wait a few hundred feet away from the tree-line surrounding the Tower watching the Rain-nin multiply, sliding out of the ground and trees to surround the first Team Seven, which had taken a long detour and arrived only just now. With Sasuke, it was only the work of a few very efficient moments to locate and knock out the true Rain-nin, after which the supposedly battered Team Seven flashed a set of foxy grins and dispelled with three small pops.

"Found it!" Sakura cheered as she straightened up, pulling out the Earth scroll that they needed from the pack of the shinobi with both of his eyes uncovered. "All right, that's both. Let's—Naruto? What's wrong?"

The blond held a hand to his temple, grimacing, before shaking his head from side to side, as if trying to knock loose water. "Hey, Sakura-chan, did you know that there's a jutsu that makes snakes? 'Cause Misato kinda…just got eaten by a really, really big one."

Sasuke, noticing that Sakura had been struck mute and was rapidly paling (never a good sign), took over the task of interrogating him. "Who attacked them?"

"Well," said Naruto, frowning. "You know that really, really creepy chick with the tongue? From Kusa? Yeah…except," he hesitated. "Except, she didn't exactly sound like a _she_, you know? And—" He cut off suddenly with a shudder, before his eyes popped open. "What the hell! That bastard just tried to bite Kimigiku like—like a _vampire_ or something! Ugh. _Ugh._ And what the hell, throwing your name around like that? What kind of name is 'Orochimaru' anyways?"

"Holy shit." Sakura croaked. "That's a member of the Legendary Sannin. _Get in the Tower._"

Naruto opened his mouth to launch a series of hard-hitting questions, most likely along the lines of 'What's a Sannin?' or 'Does that make his name less stupid?', but was quickly hauled away by the still-pale Sakura and a slightly-shaken looking Sasuke. They didn't stop running until the doors of the Tower had swung shut behind them, providing at least one flimsy layer of protection between them and the insanely strong enemy they had managed to dodge.

* * *

_...What? An update? In **two months****? **What is this witchcraft?!_

_Haha, seriously though, I was really touched by how much feedback the last chapter got me! Adding the fact that I now have much more time to write, I'm proud to say that I didn't have all that much trouble churning this chapter out!_

_As always, thanks to Rinaty, MoonShadow396, Toreh, The Queen of laziness, telsykora, Higanbana, Twisted Musalih, Andelevion, cuito, Copper Yew, Kanberry, sarah, anna012, BloodFeud, Catalina-Riza and Henri, and LiveForYourself for__ reviewing._

_Remember, any and all feedback is welcome, so drop a review; I can now say with confidence that they do make me update faster._


	6. Chapter 5: Quandries and Qualifiers

**Disclaimer:** Naruto and all canon characters referenced here don't belong to me, but Tsumo, Ringo, Yurin and any other OCs that show up here do, unless otherwise disclaimed.

_Last Edited: Oct 15, 2012_

* * *

**Where the Heart Is**

Chapter 5: Quandries and Qualifiers

* * *

_And I'm wracking my brain for a new improved way_

_To let you know you're more to me than what I know how to say…_

-"Must Have Done Something Right" by Reliant K

* * *

"…so then Misa-tan finally tried to go for Kimi-chan's throat, but Daisuke held her back which was her plan, since, y'know, it's _Misato_, but then Kucchin called her out on it and he let go and casually backed off. So then Misa-tan decided to be dramatic and went off to go 'find water' and stalked off in a huff. Then she saw that Grass…_person_ and things kind of went to shit. Like, eaten-by-a-gigantic-snake levels of shit. So yeah, then that…_person_…came after Migukkun and Daisuke, and here things get a little murky because I didn't get Misa-tan's memories until she started getting digested. But yeah that…_person_ came after them, and Giku-hime cut that fuuu…uumbling jerk right across the face. And then sh—h—_it _sort of…ripped the rest off?

"And then there was another face underneath, which was _freaky_ _as hell_. And then the sick pervert tried to bite Mikkun, like some kind of cheap vampire! So then she dispelled, and _it_ started monologuing at Daisuke before he dispelled. And it was kind of bragging about being named Orochimaru, which I still think is a stupid sissy name—don't give me that look, bastard, it so _totally_ is!—and there was some stuff about how there would be 'other opportunities' and stuff. Like I said, it's all sort of muddled together." Naruto finally took a deep breath and dropped his arms from where they had been raised and used to illustrate his narrative, before looking around and giving a short nod to their audience. "And that's the story of how we almost got killed by a Legendary Sashimi."

"Sannin," Sakura corrected, not lifting her face from where it was buried in her hands. "Legendary _Sannin_, Naruto, He's a _monster shinobi,_ not a piece of fish."

"Why did you even come to the Academy most days?" Sasuke wondered. "Did you just sort of ignore everything that wasn't physically beaten into you?"

"Shut up," Naruto suggested.

Kakashi coughed. "We're still reporting to the Hokage, children."

Sakura finally lifted her head to give him a sad, sad look. "He's heard us report to him after missions before, Kakashi-sensei. I'm fairly certain Hokage-sama no longer holds any illusions concerning the state of our hypothetical dignity and maturity."

Sarutobi Hiruzen, The Professor, Third Hokage of Konohagakure and trainer of the aforementioned 'monster shinobi' rubbed his temples, feeling the full weight of his age bear down upon him. "This is…quite worrisome," he said at length.

"I'm more worried about why _we_ were targeted." Sakura ran a hand through her hair, pulled free of its signature style for once. The elder shinobi in the room very carefully did not react as she began to pace. "I mean, does he have a vendetta against Kakashi-sensei? Is he out to harvest Sasuke's new Sharingan, like that whole Kumo-Hyuuga fiasco a decade ago? Did Naruto hit him with a paint-bomb before he defected? Did my stupid brother make a move on him in a bar somewhere? _Why us?"_

Naruto started slightly, eyes widening guiltily as something occurred to him. His teammates rounded on him, eyes focusing in like lasers.

"You know something," Sakura said slowly.

"You know something _important_," Sasuke accused. "Spill."

Naruto squirmed, glanced at their teacher and the Hokage (who stared back at him with bland, unhelpful expressions that signified that this was his choice and his alone) and promptly cracked like an egg. "I kind of. Might. Have a demon sealed in me. Sort of." He looked at them imploringly. "It wasn't my fault, I swear to God."

There was a long moment of silence. Then Sasuke cursed, low and vicious, dug a hand around in one of his pockets, and slapped a sheaf of bills into Sakura's outstretched palm. Her beaming, gentle countenance didn't so much as falter as she began thumbing through the cash, ignoring Sasuke's dark glower and Naruto's bewilderment.

Soon enough, though, the pieces of his little mental puzzle slid together. "Sakura-chan, you bet on whether or not I was a jinchuuriki?"

"Of course not!" Sakura shot him a wounded look, and even Sasuke seemed a bit put off that he might think so. "You know how every time we go over sealing, Kakashi-sensei goes on forever and _ever _about how a scroll with a kunai inside it isn't the same as having a kunai in your hand, like we're completely brain-dead or something? We bet on who it was that secretly had something sealed in them. Sasuke thought that it might have been a gentle way of hinting that his brother did something else to him That Night. I guessed it was you, since if anybody tried to get a brush on my skin when I was little Tsumo would have literally torn them limb from limb."

"…I thought those lessons were about not wasting time in a fight." Naruto admitted sheepishly.

"Naruto!" Sakura placed a hand over her heart and staggered back, eyes earnest and wide. "A true shinobi must always be able to see through deception and look underneath the underneath! Have you learned _nothing?"_

"This is why she's my favorite," Kakashi confided to the Hokage, gesturing at them.

"We can hear you." Sasuke told him.

"And yet Sakura-chan is the only one who _listens_," Kakashi shook his head tragically.

"So…" Naruto glanced between his teammates a touch warily as something bright and hopeful began to spark in his eyes. "You guys are…okay with, um…" He struggled for words. "This? You don't…hate me or anything?"

"Idiot," scoffed Sasuke, throwing him a dirty look. "You _know_ what it takes to make me hate somebody, and you doing _that_ would be pretty much self-defeating."

"Yeah," Sakura nodded, reaching over to squeeze Naruto's hand with a gentle smile. "I mean, I kind of want to go and punch the stupid out of the rest of the village even more than I did alrea—_waitaminute._" Her head snapped around, and she stared at Sasuke, who had begun studying the near wall with an almost religious intensity. "Uchiha Sasuke, did you…did you just imply that you cared about us?"

"_What?" _Naruto quickly reviewed their teammate's answer, mouthing a few syllables here and there unconsciously. Then his face split into a bright, cheery grin. "I think he _did,_ Sakura-chan! He…" His smile seemed to grow and soften all at once. "He basically called us _family._"

"Shut up," Sasuke suggested to the wall, but there was a rather telling shade of red creeping up from the high collar of his shirt.

"You _liiiiiiike_ us…" Sakura cooed, draping herself over his stiff shoulders.

Naruto slung an arm around each of them, joining in on the impromptu hug. "You_ looooooove _us…"

"Go to hell," snarled Sasuke, even as his arms twitched up in the very barest of reciprocations.

The Hokage silently rose, smiling gently despite the rather fearsome and upsetting news he had just received about one of his former students. He tapped the brim of his hat in recognition to Kakashi, who was grinning beneath his mask, and the astounding job he had done building up those children. Then he made a handseal and sunk through the floor, his smile vanishing with the heartwarming scene.

The prodigal son had returned, and that meant there was major work to be done.

* * *

"Ahh," Naruto bounced back on one of the cots they had been assigned and folded his arms behind his head. "_So _much better than roughing it. Hey, d'you think those guys we beat the crap out of are okay?"

Sasuke shrugged, more concerned with shucking off his shirt and beginning to repair all of the minute tears peppered over the cloth. "We strung them up high and close to the tower, so if they got killed or eaten before they woke up it wasn't our fault. We made every helpful gesture we could for them."

"Don't tell Zabuza-san that we did that next time you guys are over," cautioned Sakura, who had shed her legwarmers and weights in order to massage her aching calve muscles. "He'll start complaining about how our ethics make us prissy de-clawed babies and how the village is ruining our potential. Again."

"Our potential to be what?" Naruto wanted to know. "Berserker classmate-killers? Because I think we _just_ established that it wasn't a good idea to do that sort of thing like twenty minutes ago."

"You do not kill to verify your existence?" asked Gaara from the corner.

"HOLY SHIT." Naruto yelped, tumbling off the bed with an abortive jerk towards his weapons pouch. "When did you get here?!"

Sasuke calmly stuck the side of his left index finger into his mouth, nursing the small, bloodless wound he had given himself when he had stabbed his finger in surprise. Sakura swung her legs down and sat up fully, offering her relative a welcoming smile. "Oh, hey, you made it through okay! Awesome."

"You do not kill to verify your existence?" Gaara repeated, ignoring Naruto's question entirely.

Sakura blinked. "Well, no. That's kind of an extreme method, you know? And, uh…" Her eyes very carefully did not slide towards her seemingly serene teammate, who had returned to his stitching. "We kind of have a _rule_ against mass-murder in this team."

"What other methods are there?"

"Um, _not_ killing everybody?" Naruto suggested, and was ignored once again.

"Well…" Sakura thought for a minute about what she wanted to say, then tapped the white insignia on her chest. "There's always this one, you know? There's a saying; you can pick your friends, and your enemies, but your family is something that is fated. And that's kind of a really old clan ideal, though you probably don't know about it. We're scattered, nowadays. But it goes something like this: 'As the seasons flow and meld into one another, so too do we.' Which pretty much means that there are traces of me in you, traces of you in Ringo, traces of Ringo in Temari-san, traces of Kankuro-san in Yurin and so on." She paused, tracing over the circle and shrugging. "Basically, as long as any of us exist, pieces of the others will as well."

Gaara blinked, shoulders tightening dangerously for a moment, before doing something strange. His eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment and his fingers drifted over to brush almost tenderly across the gourd upon his back. And then the moment was gone, and the bland, impersonal malevolence was back, if minutely muted. "I will consider this view-point," he told her gravely, before something else caught his attention. "…why is Uchiha Sasuke poking holes in his shirt?"

"I'm mending the damage," explained Sasuke without looking up from his work. He held up the needle and braced the thread against his thumb, so that it was visible. "What, have you never seen a man sew before?"

The redhead tilted his head to the side inquisitively, echoing his much younger, distant relative. "No. How do you do it?"

"…Sakura, your legwarmers get torn like every two days, toss one over." Sasuke ordered, apparently feeling either generous or worn down after the gratuitous amounts of familial discussion over the last half hour, setting his shirt to the side and shifting over on his bed. Sakura hid a smile and complied as Gaara drifted over to hover by his side in a manner that would be described as hesitant on anybody else. At Sasuke's impatient gesture he sat, the movement a little awkward until he unclipped his gourd and set it on the floor.

Sasuke popped open his portable kit, no larger than the span of his hand, and began explaining what everything was and how to use them. Sakura looked at Naruto, who rubbed his stomach with a piteous look, before nodding and standing up, followed quickly by her blond teammate. "We're going to go get some food; we'll bring you back something, okay?"

Sasuke grunted his good-bye, unwinding a length of white thread so that he could show the Sand-nin a basic stitch. Gaara didn't respond, opting instead to focus the entirety of his attention on her teammate's motions and brusque words.

"Your family is _weird_, Sakura-chan." Naruto told her when they had reached the stairs.

"My family is _amazing_," Sakura retorted, before bumping shoulders with him and smiling faintly. "All of it."

Naruto scratched his cheek and turned his head, but there was no mistaking the blood rushing to his ears or the way the muscles in his cheeks shifted. "Quit bragging so much," he told her, giving up on playing cool to bump her back. "Mine's just as awesome."

"Believe it," Sakura told him, ruffling a hand through his hair fondly.

Naruto believed it. Just barely, and with the niggling concern that he was going to wake up at any moment to a harsh, lonely reality, but he believed it.

They travelled the rest of the way in a warm, companionable silence, and soon reached the cantina area. They were surprised to find that the only occupants of the room, positioned in opposite corners, were people that they already knew.

"Sakura-chan," greeted Temari with a small smile, Kankuro waving lazily from beside her.

"N-Naruto-kun," Hinata squeaked from between her teammates.

"Damn, you guys made it here fast!" Naruto blinked in surprise while Sakura let out a relieved sigh. It was not missed by any of the room's occupants.

"What, worried your freakish monster forest would get us?" Kankuro asked, unsure as to whether he should laugh or be offended. "Sorry to disappoint you, but we cut through it like paper. The examiners told us we totally obliterated the last record."

"No, it's…well, in the forest…" Sakura hesitated, unsure as to how much she was permitted to say about the matter.

"There's a Legendary Somen hunting around out there," Naruto announced easily. Sakura rubbed a hand over her face.

There was a beat of silence as everybody tried to translate. It was Temari who got it first, and she went stock-still. "Please," she requested politely, paling under her slight tan. _"Please,_ tell me that he really does mean that there is a noodle monster on the loose, and not…not a…"

"A Legendary Sannin?" Kiba lost a good majority of his normal bluster. "If you guys are this worked up about it then…shit. You mean that _snake bastard."_ He growled, low in his throat, Akamaru following suit even as he cowered in his human partner's hood. "Mom's gonna be howling for blood when she finds out. That guy kidnapped and experimented on some clansmen back before he slithered out of town."

"You should not attempt anything rash," cautioned Shino tonelessly, though his chopsticks were creaking slightly in his grip and there was a faint buzzing noise from his end of the room. "Why? You would be severely outclassed, and either killed or worse. Allowing the Hokage and ANBU to handle the situation has a much higher chance of success."

"I'm not going to do something stupid!" Kiba barked. "I do have _some_ common sense, you know?"

"Why do you two know that?" Temari asked suddenly, tilting her head back to eye the two members of Team Seven, who had begun grabbing food and loading up their plates. They looked at each other, looked down at the food, and then Sakura shook her head after calculating just how long it would take to rehash the story and answer any other questions.

Naruto laughed, hoisting up four heavily-laden plates. "Um, it's really an awesome, long, _long_ story, and we'll totally tell you all about later, but the important things are that we aren't dead, we're hungry as hell, and Sasuke's teaching your scary little brother how to stitch alone in our room, so we're just going to go back up before our bastard forgets his manners and starts bitching at him about his knots or something. Bye!"

Sakura lifted up her own plates, choked back a laugh, and followed her teammate back out as the other five genin simply _stared_.

* * *

The next few days were passed idly, though it wasn't until the last two days of the exam that the rest of the teams who had managed to get the scrolls they needed trickled in. Mercifully, Naruto was not called forth again to rehash his second-hand encounter with the powerful missing-nin, though there was a two-hour stretch where somebody had dropped the ball so horribly that Ibiki wound up alone in a room with Team Seven.

All four later emerged, each looking varying levels of smug and amused. Nobody had quite managed to work up the nerve to ask about what was discussed.

The only things that really interrupted the trio's easy-going recovery were Gaara's long, daily (and sometimes nightly) visits and demands for more complex lessons, and the knowledge that they had to stay inside without training or picking fights with the other teams. It was maddening—not because Team Seven was especially belligerent, but because Kakashi took an undue amount of pleasure in taking long walks outside the tower and regaling them about how beautiful it was outside, and how, by pure chance, he had found the nicest little clearing, with sturdy trees and even ground. How _unfortunate_ it was, he bemoaned, that they wouldn't be able to rough it up.

Sakura, despite her desire to be out and about, and despite her desire to patch things up with Team Nine or at least talk about what had happened, stayed in the room most of the time, and urged the boys to do so as well. Orochimaru was still on the loose, after all, and since they still weren't sure whether he was after Naruto or Sasuke, neither boy was left alone when they could help it.

Sakura didn't get her legwarmers back until about twenty minutes before the assembly for the start of the Third Exam. She studied them carefully, taking in the surprisingly intricate black embroidery at the ends. "When did you have time to do this?" Sakura wondered, tugging them on over her weights. "Sasuke started teaching you like four days ago. Did you just not sleep or something?"

"I never do," Gaara informed her, before disappearing in a swirl of sand to rejoin his siblings.

"…he's so _weird,_" Naruto complained for the umpteenth time as Team Seven made their way down to the arena. "_'I never do,'_ geeze, what the hell? Sakura-chan, you're cousin has some sortof a _condition_, you know that right?"

"_You_ have a 'condition'," Sakura shot back immaturely just before they fell in line, managing to snag the last word before their leader began addressing the chuunin-hopefuls who had made it this far. He sulked and tried to pinch her, but she twisted her arms slightly and dug her thumbnail into the fleshy webbing between his thumb and forefinger instead. He bit his lip hard to hold back his yelp of pain.

Sasuke's face could have been carved of stone despite (or perhaps because of) the subtle war of petty revenge breaking out behind him. His teammates were mindful not to do anything to interrupt the Hokage, so he merely stared back at the disapproving glances a few proctors shot their way until the older ninja eventually dropped their gazes and tried not to shrink back from that stern, austere gaze of cold disapproval they remembered from the Uchiha police-officers of their childhood.

The speech finished with only one resignation from the exam, and a truce was declared between the two vastly more emotive members of Team Seven as they made their way up to the viewing platform. _'I won,'_ Sakura mouthed to Sasuke while Naruto draped himself over the railing, staring hungrily at the board as it flicked through names.

His eagerness was for naught, however, and a cry of displeasure split the air as the first match was declared.

_Uchiha Sasuke vs. Inuzuka Kiba_

Sakura shivered slightly at the downright evil little smile—_smile!_—on Sasuke's face. "I'm going to enjoy this," he declared pleasantly, strolling towards the stairs.

Kiba followed suit, chilled and bewildered by the vindictive glee his old classmate was radiating. "What did I do?" he asked Sakura as he passed her. "The first exam was the first time I've seen you guys since we graduated, and he's been holed up in your room since you got to the Tower!"

"Now, this is just a thought," Sakura mused, leaning back against the rail. "So don't take it as the only possible reason, but it _might_ have something to do with you leering at him when we first came in to the testing room." Her fingers drummed lightly against the metal support to a jaunty, silent tune.

"But I _didn't_ leer at him, I was looking at y—" Kiba froze, halfway down the stairs, and the color abruptly drained out of his face. "I-I was looking at…" He slowly looked back up at Sakura, then down at Sasuke, who was still _smiling_. "A-At…" Kiba swallowed and trudged the rest of the way down to his doom.

The proctor started the match and Sakura stretched, her back to the brutal carnage she knew was soon to follow, and met the flabbergasted stares directed at her.

"Wait, so…" Ino furrowed her brows, waving her hands in front of her. "So…During the first part, Sasuke was _you?"_

"Yep." Sakura nodded. "It's easier to pretend to be somebody else than pretend you aren't quite yourself."

"So you were pretending to be N-Naruto-kun then?" Hinata piped up, glancing back and wincing at the rather loud beating her teammate was receiving down below.

"What?" Sakura frowned. "No, don't be silly. I was pretending to be a clone of Naruto pretending to be Sasuke, just like Sasuke was pretending to be a clone of Naruto pretending to be me."

"Of course," Shikamaru deadpanned. "How silly of us. I take it Naruto was pretending to be a clone pretending to be himself, too?"

Sakura snorted. "That would just be stupid, Shikamaru." She rolled her eyes. "He was pretending to be Daisuke, obviously."

"Duh," Naruto chimed in, folding his arms behind his head. "It was the only way Sakura-chan would let me make such an awesome entrance!"

"He was…wait, then who were 'Kimigiku' and 'Misato'?" Shikamaru asked, eyes narrowing as he tried to peer down whatever twisted mental alleyway had outlined such a plan. "Bribed Academy students?"

"Shikamaru," Sakura gave him a patient, pitying look. "All the Academy kids were told they have the day off today. It hasn't been _that_ long since we graduated and you, of all people, should know that there's no bribe big enough to get them to spend their free day _at school._ The girls were actually clones." She paused. "This time."

"What the hell was my old man thinking, letting you near children?" Asuma demanded, rounding on Kakashi, who was chuckling.

"As much as I would _love_ to take credit for that, and believe me, I really, really would…" Kakashi shook his head fondly. "That plan is entirely Sakura's. She's the best little tactician I could have hoped for."

"…you guys must have had this planned out for a long time," Shikamaru sounded grudgingly impressed. "There was even that eye-catching 'mistake' in the henge that Ino and Kiba weren't able to keep from clearly mentioning."

"_Excuse me?"_ The words were hissed out in two different voices, each liberally coated in a soul-sucking level of ice. Sasuke was back at the top of the stairs now, and Kiba and Akamaru were being carried off in stretchers. Kurenai was looking worried now, and it was all Kakashi could do not to gloat. Yet.

Sasuke stalked forward, glaring Shikamaru down. "My henge is _perfect_, Nara."

Shikamaru made as if to look at Sakura's torso pointedly, but luckily for him his brain caught up with the plan and killed it dead before it could be fully implemented. He coughed and rubbed at the back of his neck. "But there _was_ a mistake…?"

Sasuke snorted softly and whirled around, tugging Sakura in front of him. She rolled her eyes, but went along with his intrinsic need to prove his excellence. He smoothed one hand up her back, making her straighten her spine, while the other tugged her shoulders back. "She slouches. I don't."

"Not all of us have steel rods where our spinal cords are meant to be, Sasuke," she huffed, slipping back into that casual, now noticeable slouch.

"Your aunt is a priestess," he shot back accusingly, as the next match was declared. Kankuro reluctantly made his way down the stairs to face one of the leaf-nin dressed in purple.

_Sabaku no Kankuro vs. Tsurugi Misumi_

"I will straighten my spine for the one who created me, the one who takes my soul, and the one who signs my paychecks," Sakura told him. "Anybody else can—_oh,_ that does not look comfortable." She turned back around to stare, fascinated, at the putty-like body wrapped around her cousin. "Do you think if he stays that way for a long time, he'll get stuck?"

"I dunno, Sakura-chan," Naruto said skeptically, once more hanging over the railing. "That sounds a little too close to that old wives' tale about making funny faces."

"All stories come from _somewhere_, Naruto," Sakura told him sagely.

"Are you three always like this?" Ino demanded, looking at Team Seven strangely.

The trio blinked as one, before turning to share a look. "Like what?" They chorused, identical expressions of vague, innocent confusion on their faces.

Kakashi chuckled, edging away from the accusing stares of his colleagues. "What can I say? They took to team bonding exercises quite naturally."

There was a cracking noise from down below as 'Kankuro' unhinged his jaw and chomped down on the rubbery arm around 'his' neck with glistening, needle-like teeth. Sakura let out a low whistle when, not thirty seconds later, his unfortunate opponent collapsed. "_Oooh_, Suna really does have the best poisons."

Naruto shrugged, unconcerned. "I don't care, Sakura-chan, their puppets are still creepy as hell. We're not going there for a training trip." From the tone of his voice it was apparent that this was not the first debate they had gotten into on the subject.

"Fuuton users are _really_ common there, compared to here…" Sakura wheedled.

"Hellishly hot weather," Sasuke put forth.

"Entirely new styles of basic, useful skills!"

"…we'll talk about this later," Kakashi said, closing the discussion. "Though personally I haven't seen snow in a while."

"Tsumo says that snow is a silent killer, bitter and harsh as a woman scorned and only admirable to foolish romantics watching from a distance." Sakura reported, turning to watch the medics hustle the defeated shinobi away.

"Harada is from the Land of Iron; he grew up in a barren tundra, so his opinion doesn't count."

Naruto's brow furrowed in confusion. "But…wouldn't that make his opinion count _mo_—"

"Oh look," Kakashi cut him off blithely. "Your little friends are going to fight now. You should watch them."

His team turned to look at the board and promptly choked.

_Yamanaka Ino vs. Aburame Shino_

"Oh_,_" Sakura breathed, as a manic smile spread across Naruto's face and a glint of Schadenfreude sparked in Sasuke's eyes. "Oh _no._"

"Please, tell me there is a security feed in this building," Naruto begged, managing to squeeze a few more teeth into his grin. "Tell me that this will be preserved for prosperity, or at least until I can find a copy and claim it as my own."

"Do you think she'll actually be stupid enough to swap bodies?" Sasuke asked, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the railing. "It might be our only chance ever to see Aburame shriek and flail like a prissy girl. She might even knock his glasses off."

Naruto took a look at the pale and shaky blonde down below, but sadly shook his head. "Nah. She made that vow back when we were nine, remember? That she'd die before she wore a body with bugs squirming around in it. But either way, this is going to be hilarious."

"Agreed."

"You're horrible people," Sakura accused, though she herself was a little eager for the match to be called.

"No, Sakura-chan," Naruto corrected her, slinging an arm around her shoulders. _"We're_ horrible people. Now shh, the show is starting."

The sickly proctor started the match.

Immediately, a large buzzing black cloud of insects rose from Shino's coat and swarmed after Ino. The kunoichi, apparently forgetting her training in the midst of sheer terror, turned tail and ran. The bugs followed in her wake, and she began screaming as they inched closer and closer. The vicious, amusing scene stretched out for several minutes, much to Asuma and Shikamaru's chagrin, before Shino finally stepped in and pinned her down.

It was difficult to tell, since he was soft-spoken and his mouth was covered, but Shino apparently had to ask multiple times if she would yield before Ino regained enough rationality to do so. He immediately backed off and recalled his insects.

The blonde took one look at him, shuddered, and scrambled back up to the safety of her team. Naruto had his face pressed hard against Sakura's shoulder as she passed behind Team Seven, desperately muting his cackles until he could control them without earning himself a punch in the face.

"Okay Chuckles," Sakura shoved him off roughly. "It's time to pretend that you're a serious, respectable shinobi now. You're up."

_Akado Yoroi vs. Uzumaki Naruto_

Naruto let out an excited hoot and vaulted straight over the railing, beating the rubberman's teammate there easily. He jiggled from foot to foot, obviously eager to begin. Quickly enough, the match was called.

"It's good you have so much energy," the older ninja told him pleasantly as they both dropped into taijutsu stances. A moment later they blurred forth, and Naruto found himself in a firm hold. "I could use a boost!"

"…uh, what?" Naruto struggled this way and that.

"You can feel it, can't you?" his opponent taunted. "The chakra slowly draining out of you and into me. Soon enough you won't have any left, and this match will be mine!"

There was an awkward pause.

"I can't watch this," Sakura muttered, closing her head and dropping her head to rest on her folded arms. "I think I'll take a nap. Wake me up when Naruto quits playing around or that guy fries his chakra coils."

"Wake up," Sasuke nudged her not thirty seconds later, once Naruto had slipped free of the hold and kicked his opponent solidly in the temple.

"I can't even get a nap out of it?" Sakura complained, raising her head. "That was the worst match ever. Literally _nothing of worth_ was accomplished."

"I made it to the next round!" Naruto cheered, racing back up to them.

"That's nice," Sakura rested her cheek on her palm, watching the board scramble names again. "Knew you had it in you. Oh look, Gaara's up_. Go Gaara! You can do it!"_ Sakura cheered as Naruto sulked.

_Dosu Kinuta vs. Sabaku no Gaara_

Gaara turned and looked at her for a moment, before nodding shortly and turning back to his mummy-like opponent.

The fight was brutally short; literally so. At the first sign of an attack, Gaara twitched his fingers and Dosu's hands were quickly encased in sand. One clenched fist later saw the match quickly declared to be Gaara's win and Dosu being rushed to the medical wing to cauterize the mangled stumps of his arms in an effort to save him before he bled out.

"Serves him right," Sasuke frowned distastefully. "Their backwater hick-town should have waited a few more years before trying to send shinobi to fight _us_." Rolling their eyes, each teammate promptly slapped his shoulder.

"You are _such_ a snob," Sakura informed him.

"The snootiest of snobs," Naruto agreed.

"Tell me I'm wrong," Sasuke dared them.

"Children," Kakashi scolded. "Not in public." The other teams were staring at them, some aghast and some thoughtful.

"Sorry, sensei," they droned, before turning back to the board once again. "Oh," said Sakura. "This'll be quick."

_Sabaku no Temari vs. Zaku Abumi_

It was pathetically quick.

Despite the implants that the Sound-nin, Zaku, wasted no time in bragging about, it was clear that when it came to mastery over air currents he was severely outclassed. A grand total of forty-six seconds later saw him slumped against a cracked wall, beaten, bleeding and broken.

Temari swung her fan shut and strutted back up to the opposite platform.

"Would've been better off if he had just stuck to tending rice paddies."

"Sasuke!"

"_Tell me I'm wrong."_

"Oh shit," murmured Sakura, looking up at the board as the next match-up was announced and a victorious cry rang out. Her mouth twisted into a piteous frown. "Poor Choji."

_Rock Lee vs. Akimichi Choji_

The match looked more like a sport than a spar, with the inflated, barbeque-bribed younger boy being bounced around this way and that by his exuberant, green-clad senior. It was a relief to nearly everybody watching when the dispirited Akimichi finally gave up and trudged off with the medics

That relief didn't last long, however, when the next match called both Hyuuga down to fight.

_Hyuuga Hinata vs. Hyuuga Neji_

Sakura felt like she was in a dream, or perhaps a nightmare as she watched the fight unfold. No, that was too kind a description; it was a grudge-fueled beating, and Hinata was refusing to stay down. The sickest part of it all was that Sakura could imagine, with perfect clarity, just what Neji was thinking and feeling.

Or at least, she _did,_ up until the moment she saw him shift his hand into a stance he had never used in training, never against allies, and had to be restrained from stopping his cousin's heart.

Sakura was dimly aware of Naruto screaming something, infuriated, of Sasuke's white-knuckled grip on the railing, of the stiff, unrepentant set to Neji's shoulders as he marched off to the infirmary, keeping a deliberate distance from the stretcher bearing Hinata.

She was aware of it all, but she only turned her back to the railing and slid down until she was sitting on the floor. She stared at the wall blankly, hearing Shikamaru being badgered by Ino until he made his way down for his match. She shut her eyes, forced herself to come to terms with what she had just witnessed, and began to think and plan.

She felt much more steady by the time Shikamaru had managed to incapacitate the final member of the delegation from Sound, and stood. She walked down to the arena without so much as a glance at the board. There was only one possible match-up left, after all.

_Haruno Sakura vs. Tenten_

* * *

It could be said that Tenten was a little on edge.

That would, of course, be a gross understatement. Over the past week, her enthusiasm for this exam had been knocked straight off its pedestal and ground firmly into the dirt. Sakura hadn't told them her team was entering the exam, first of all. And okay, perhaps it was unfair for her to be upset as Team Nine hadn't exactly announced it to their pink-haired friend either, but that certainly hadn't been for lack of trying on their part.

Sakura had been inviting them around less and less as of late. At first, Tenten thought it might be an effort to keep them away from the nuke-nin she was supposedly 'rehabilitating', but she hadn't seemed to mind much when Tenten had met Haku. Furthermore, she had started training earlier and earlier in the day, instead of using up the time Hatake wasted with his tardiness to train with them.

Tenten suspected that Sakura was training with her teammates during that free time, and yes, she _didn't_ have a logical right to resent them for that. But she resented them anyways. It was a primal sort of anger, rooted deeply in the sentiment of _We Were Here First_.

Lee and Gai seemed frustratingly unruffled about the situation, even _happy_ for Sakura, but Neji, at least, seemed to share her discomfort. They hadn't spoken about it, but Tenten knew of at least two meetings at the teahouse that Sakura hadn't been able to make. They were by no means set in stone, but he and Sakura had always seemed so _dependent_ on those quiet little rendezvous.

She wasn't blaming Sakura for Neji's little mental break just now, certainly not, considering how negotiations with Kumogakure were finally once again beginning to move forward. It wasn't easy for Neji by any means, and being pitted against the girl who he partially blamed for his father's sacrifice had been the straw that broke the camel's back for him.

The point, however, was that Tenten was feeling resentful and neglected. Almost scorned, really, and that was never a safe state for a kunoichi to be in.

"Ready, Sakura-chan?" Tenten inquired pleasantly, rolling her shoulders to loosen them up.

Her friend was strolling down the stairs leisurely, instead of leaping straight down the way Tenten had. "Oh, just about," the younger girl replied with a blank sort of civility that only fanned the flames of Tenten's ire. "Though this is really an unfortunate match-up." She eyed the board hanging above them as though it had personally slighted her.

"Scared you're going to lose to your favorite senpai?" Tenten teased, with just a smidgeon more heat than she might normally use.

"Sorry," Sakura ducked her head apologetically. "But that's still Gai-senpai, Tenten. You've got a ways to go before you pull ahead of him in that particular poll."

"Quit chatting, Sakura-chan!" Her obnoxious teammate hollered down from the platform. "Just start already so we can move on to the next part and go home!"

Sakura waved a hand at him in annoyance, but nodded to the sickly proctor as a signal that she was ready to get down to business. He started the match and they began circling each other, matching pace for pace.

Tenten charged the moment she saw the muscles on Sakura's arms shift inwards. She couldn't allow Sakura to form more than two handseals; Sakura was frustratingly crafty when it came to regular jutsu. She didn't want to even think about what kinds of nightmarish techniques Hatake might have introduced her to over the past few months.

The ensuing close-range assault was fairly evenly matched, though Tenten had few doubts that such would be the case if Sakura removed her weights. While nowhere near Lee or Gai-sensei's level, Sakura had devoted a large chunk of her training to taijutsu. Tenten privately thought it was a means of compensating for just how weak she had been in her pre-Ringo years.

As much as it irked her to pull out an ace this early in the game, Tenten couldn't waste much more time or energy on her current course of action. And as much as she loathed the thought of giving Sakura a window that large, there was really only one way to end this quickly and on her own terms.

One strong kick against Sakura's crossed forearms allowed her to neatly backflip backwards, putting some much-needed space between them. Luckily, Sakura opted to assume a casual, defensive posture as she caught her breath, eying Tenten warily. Her eyes rounded in surprise when Tenten pulled out two scrolls, but she quickly locked down her expression.

"Do you know," Tenten asked her friend accusingly, swiftly sliding into her starting position and leaping high into the air. "How long I've worked on this technique? I was hoping to save this attack for the Finals! Well, you're worth it, I suppose, but now I have to hammer out a whole new strategy."

"Do you know," Sakura asked pleasantly in return as Tenten began to spin, the first blades appearing in her hands. "What happens when you set a scroll with things sealed in it on fire?"

"…wait wha—"

_"Goukakyu no Jutsu!"_

Tenten's spin brought her around just in time to see a fireball slam into one of the points where the spiraled-out scrolls crossed and quickly split, eating its way through the rest.

And then each and every weapon she had so painstakingly sealed away exploded out. Most of them were driven out of the spiral, instead of inwards, but quite a few still came her way. She was able to deflect them with the few blade she had managed to unseal herself, but one kunai was jettisoned out at an angle that severed the wires she had attached to the high ceiling in order to keep herself in the air this long.

She dropped like a stone, twisting as best she could to avoid the metal in the air and get into a decent landing position. However, a sick dizziness slammed into her out of nowhere, leaving her incredibly disoriented at the worst possible moment. Before she could even begin to attempt to break out of the simple genjutsu, she slammed into the ground, getting the wind knocked right out of her.

She struggled to push herself up, throat working uselessly as she tried to suck in air, and just managed to see the kick rocketing towards her head before darkness overtook her vision and she knew no more.

* * *

"Winner: Haruno Sakura!"

Sakura stepped back as the medics rushed over to Tenten and boisterous cheers erupted from her teammate. The rest of the winners were soon called down, and she found herself between an exuberant Naruto and a critical Sasuke.

"Your lung capacity has improved," he commented grudgingly, before narrowing his eyes and pressing a handkerchief against her bleeding forearm. "But that was a really, really stupid move. You look like shit."

Sakura swallowed a laugh and tried to look repentant as he began tugging at the mess that was left of her hair fussily. When the rain of metal death had come at her (and everybody else in the immediate vicinity), there was only so much she had been able to dodge while simultaneously building up her genjutsu. Her split concentration had cost her some shallow wounds on her arms that were still bleeding, a relatively small cut on her face, and a pigtail and roughly half of each of her long forelocks.

She shrugged. "Meh. You've been badgering me to get a haircut anyways."

Sasuke looked as though he was going to start yelling, but luckily enough they were quickly called forth to draw lots. When everybody had chosen and announced their numbers, the first matches for the Finals in one month's time were drawn up and shown.

_Hyuuga Neji vs. Uzumaki Naruto_

_Aburame Shino vs. Sabaku no Kankuro_

_Sabaku no Temari vs. Naru Shikamaru_

_Uchiha Sasuke vs. Rock Lee_

_Haruno Sakura vs. Sabaku no Gaara_

Team Seven shared a look.

"Well," said Sakura wryly. _"This_ certainly looks like it'll be a fun month."

* * *

_And here we are with yet another __update! I'm really thrilled with how many new readers I seem to be getting lately. Before I do my usual thing an thank all my wonderful reviewers, I thought I'd clear up Team Seven's convoluted strategy for those of you who might still be confused. In the theme of 'Appearance' (True person), the configuration went something like this:_

_**First Exam:** 'Sakura' (Sasuke), 'Naruto' (clone), 'Sasuke' (Sakura), 'Misato' (clone), 'Daisuke' (Naruto), 'Kimigiku' (clone)_

_**Before the Second Exam:** The above-configured teams went into the tent. Then, all henges were dropped, leaving Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto, and three clones. A fourth clone was made, transformed into a mouse, and was left behind to scout out teams who would receive the scroll that Team Seven needed. Henges were applied again, but this time the configuration was: __ 'Sakura' (Sakura), 'Naruto' (Naruto), 'Sasuke' (Sasuke), 'Misato' (clone), 'Daisuke' (clone), 'Kimigiku' (clone)_

**During the Second Exam:** A second team of clones was created. The logic behind each strategy was something like this:___  
_

___ Team 1: 'Misato' (clone), 'Daisuke' (clone), 'Kimigiku' (clone) - Headed straight for the targeted team with the scroll they wanted. Forced the targeted team to use escape maneuvers and head for the Tower. Aggressive enough that it would seem logical for them to be real, instead of clones. Were attacked by Orochimaru._

_______Team 2: 'Sakura 1' (clone), 'Naruto 1' (clone), 'Sasuke 1' (clone) - Headed to the Northwest, careful to keep out of other people's way but still 'looking for scrolls'. Supposedly wandered into the trap laid by the Rain-nin, but served as bait to draw their attention and wear them out until Team 3 stepped in and knocked them out._

_______Team 3: '____Sakura 2' (Sakura), 'Naruto 2' (Naruto), 'Sasuke 2' (Sasuke) - Headed straight for the Tower. Began setting traps and such, ate very little for the benefit of any observers. Easy to assume that they were 'decoys'._

___________Hopefully that helps you guys out!_

___________Moving on, as always I'd like to give a great big thanks to LiveForYourself, peoplehateme101, PervertAnimeOtaku, Andelevion, sarah, MoonShadow396, cuito, konoha kid, chained2love, TwistedMusalih, Catalina-Riza and Henri, MeMyselfAndZafir, Higanbana.4, and petitefeeme! You guys rock._

___________I have an announcement too! (Gosh, this note is the longest yet...)_

___________Despite the nice example I have been setting as of late, during November I can tell you for sure that **Where the H**_**eart**** Is** **will NOT be updated.**

_However! This is because, as part of a fanfic-version of NaNoWriMo, I will be attempting to post up a different story, with 1,667 or so words per chapter, **every day.** So, be on the look-out for that, come November first. _

_As always, feedback is always welcome! So feel free to drop me a review._


End file.
